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THE LAST VOYAGES 



ADMIRAL OF THE OCEAN SEA 






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CHARLES PAUL MAC KIE 



The more we discuss the undertaking and meditate concerning it, the 
more do we recognize how great has been this your achievement; and 
that you have shown a greater wisdom therein than it was ever thought 
possible any mortal could possess. Please God that the future may 
equal what has been begun ! 

Ferdinand and Isabella to Columbus, Sept. 5, 1493 




CHICAGO 
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 



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Copyright, 

By a. C. McClurg and Co. 

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PREFACE. 



IT is not consistent with that spirit of justice which is the 
inheritance of the true American that any man, however 
long dead, should be condemned unheard, or upon a partial 
record. Few among the men of action of his time left such 
ample declaration both of purpose and performance as did 
Columbus, yet none has been more mercilessly assailed upon 
ex parte evidence. Weighty names have of late asked the 
world of students to accept their individual estimates of the 
great sailor's character based upon their presentation of his 
aims and actions, treating his own utterances as insignificant 
or untrustworthy. Were we limited to the chronicles of 
his life and deeds as apprehended by contemporary or later 
historians, this method might be necessary ; but happily the 
case is otherwise. The letters and reports of Columbus are 
neither scanty nor difficult of access, and there is no good 
reason apparent to us why the reader should not be enabled 
to form his conclusions at first hand. There is no occasion 
for treating as a mystery the open book of this man's life, 
for he himself knew neither reserve nor artifice in its indit- 
ing. Of him it may in truth be said, that out of his own 
mouth is he to be judged. 

The story of Columbus, as we know it, is sharply divided 
into two epochs, — the twelvemonth which covers the Discov- 
ery, and the fourteen years which succeeded it. The goings 

5 



6 PREFACE. 

and comings of the Genoese sailor offered so little to dis- 
tinguish them from those of his colleagues, before his name 
was connected with a preeminent exploit, that even the 
microscopic investigations of a Harrisse have failed to recon- 
struct the life of Columbus prior to 1492. Had we that 
volume of " Reminiscences " which the Admiral wrote in 
his later years, the story of his earlier days might be told 
with satisfactory fulness. In the absence of all but frag- 
mentary allusions, that story must remain imperfect. It is, 
after all, from the years following the Discovery that an ade- 
quate conception of the Admiral's personality under varying 
conditions is to be gained, and it is, consequently, the more 
welcome that the blanks in this portion of his history are 
relatively so few. 

In the attempt we here make to set before our readers 
the motives and actions of the Admiral and Viceroy, as dis- 
tinguished from the finder of San Salvador, we have limited 
ourselves to the materials left by the participants them- 
selves, leaving to each reader the apportionment of applause 
or censure as to him may seem fitting. The familiar chron- 
icles of Oviedo, Gomara, and Bernaldez (the Cura de los 
Palacios) are but rarely drawn upon ; Herrera is seldom 
quoted, for he merely paraphrased Las Casas, — however 
much modern historians may quote him as an original 
authority ; Ferdinand Columbus is not deemed a first-rate 
source of knowledge except for the Fourth Voyage ; and 
Peter Martyr only when relating what he directly gathered 
from conversations or correspondence with the Admiral and 
his associates. Benzoni, of course, is discarded as of no 
weight for this period or anything relating to it, and the 
mass of contradictions attributed to Vespucci is taken for 
what it is worth. The greater portion of our narrative is 
drawn immediately from the writings of Columbus and some 
of his associates, as collected by Navarrete and scattered 
through the history of Las Casas. 



PREFACE. 7 

As a measure of justice to our readers, we have in all 
cases made our own translation direct from the originals of 
all material used. We know that the speech of Columbus 
was strongly tinctured with Portuguese, and the eftects of 
his long residence among that people are equally apparent in 
the extreme rudeness and compression of his written lan- 
guage. This often lends vigor to his expressions, but some- 
times obscures his meaning ; hence more than usual care is 
needed in converting his phrases. Selections from his writ- 
ings have been done into English by Major and Kettell ; 
but neither of these versions is easy of access to the general 
reader, and we do not assume to disparage the scholarship 
of either learned translator in saying that, for any serious 
purpose, their renderings are quite inadmissible. If any 
writer is worth quoting at all, he is worth quoting correctly, 
and harm enough has been already done the cause of honest 
history by drawing hasty conclusions from erroneously re- 
ported premises. 

Englewood, N.J., 

October, 1892. 




CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. New Lands beyond the Sea ii 

II. Founding the Great Monopoly 32 

III. The Beginning of Emigration 50 

IV. The Islands of the Cannibals 72 

V. A Bitter Disillusion 92 

VI. Taking Root iii 

VII. The Viceroy's First Report 126 

VIII. The Beginning of Conquest 142 

IX. Identifying Asia 163 

X. The Revolt of the Tribes 186 

XI. The Penalty of Defeat 205 

XII. Investigation and Vindication 227 

XIII. Planning New Discoveries 249 

XIV. Seeking the Great South Land .... 278 
XV. "These lands are another world*' . . . 298 

XVI. From Paradise to Inferno 322 

XVII. Prodigal Magnanimity 340 

XVIII. The Faith of Princes 359 

9 



lO CONTENTS. 

Chapter Page 

XIX. The Triumph of Intrigue ....... 382 

XX. The Amend Politic 404 

XXI. Anticipating Magellan 427 

XXII. An Inaccessible Ocean 450 

XXIII. The Greatest Peril of All 474 

XXIV. "I have done all I could" 496 




THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL 
OF THE OCEAN SEA. 



NEW LANDS BEYOND THE SEA. 

" T T THEN I had undertaken this enterprise and gone to 
W discover the Indies, I proposed in my mind to go 
personally to your Holiness [when I returned] with 
an account of all that had happened. There arose at that time 
a dispute between the King of Portugal and the King and Queen, 
my sovereigns ; the King of Portugal declaring that he also 
intended to send out on that course to discover and win lands 
in those parts, — and so he stood upon his rights. The King 
and Queen, my sovereigns, thereupon sent me in haste upon the 
task of discovering and winning everything, and so my journey 
to your Holiness could not be effected." 

Thus succinctly did Columbus, writing in after years to 
Pope Alexander VI., epitomize the events of the six months 
of hurried intrigue and feverish preparation which elapsed 
between his arrival from " the Discovery," as, for the sake 
of distinction, he termed his first voyage, and his departure 
upon the second. Yet no period of his career was so 
crowded with incident and excitement, and at no time did 
he occupy so preeminent a place in the minds of princes 
and people, as during the half-year he dismisses in this 
summary fashion. 



12 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

The Te Deums and Non Nobises had been chanted by 
the choristers of the Royal Chapel at Barcelona ; their 
Majesties had indicated by acts of pointed condescension 
the esteem in which they held their new Admiral ; the com- 
plaisant Court had hastened to follow the example thus 
unmistakably set, and the thoughts of high and low alike 
were turned towards the regions of boundless hope and 
promise which so unexpectedly were opened to the arms 
and ambition of the twin kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. 
Little did the hungry placemen, the adventurous soldiers 
of fortune, or the hardy seamen of the day care whether 
the new-found lands were Cathay or Cipango, Farther India 
or the Golden Chersonesus, the Asiatic continent or a group 
of unnamed islands off its coasts. One thing was patent : 
Don Christopher Columbus had crossed and recrossed the 
Ocean Sea in safety and most palpably demonstrated that but 
a short month's sail lay between the Pillars of Hercules and 
the countries " where the spices grew," where " the temples 
and palaces were sheathed with planks of gold." The rare 
fabrics of silk and golden broidery, the gems and carven 
ivories, the perfumes and incense which the luxury-loving 
Spaniards had seen and admired in Court pageant and 
church ceremonial, or looted in the Moorish palaces of 
Alhama and Granada, had come, as all men knew, from the 
hazy confines of the distant East ; and were not these the 
realms now seized and garrisoned for the Crown of Spain 
by the Admiral and his fortunate command ? Nothing more 
natural than that all should be eager to extend the discov- 
eries thus happily made, and derive some share either of 
profit or glory from the prosecution of the new crusade. 
The triumphant conclusion of the wars of Granada had left 
the south of Spain filled with a multitude of restless spirits 
sighing, like later Alexanders, for other worlds to have at 
and plunder ; and, lo ! as by a miracle, their dearest wish 
was gratified, and the whole Antipodes of Earth were 
offered them for the taking. 

The stupendous exploit had broken upon them all as a 
surprise. Except a few of the more observant placemen at 
Court and some hundreds of unimportant subjects in the 



J\JE1V LANDS BEYOND THE SEA. 13 

maritime districts of Andalusia, none had borne in mind 
the saiUng of the Genoese captain the year before with his 
modest equipment of caravels. Now he was returned, with 
a tale the like of which even the Moorish romancers could 
not rival. Had it been merely the story of some crew of 
inventive sailors, recounting to hearers who could not gain- 
say them the marvels of a voyage to unknown shores, the 
credulity of the vulgar throng would have been jeered at 
by the politer circles who knew so much better. But this 
Senor Colon, or Colombo as he was sometimes called, had 
not scrupled to write more than one report teeming with 
the wonders of his recent voyage, — to the King and Queen, 
to Santangel, the royal treasurer of Aragon, to Sanchez, the 
comptroller of the royal finances, and to others of equal 
eminence ; and these reports were not only most sincerely 
credited by the sovereigns and their learned men, but they 
had been instantly printed and passed into general circula- 
tion. Therefore were the learned, polite, and vulgar together 
soon possessed of all the facts concerning this astonishing 
Discovery ; and the conceptions held by all, as to the new 
lands beyond the Western Ocean, were grounded upon the 
statements of Columbus himself as he had promulgated 
them in the letters prepared upon his homeward voyage. 

Little wonder that their contents excited the enthusiasm 
of widely different classes of society. Here is what they 
read, or had read to them, of the great island, over yonder 
in the Indian seas, which the new-made Admiral had dis- 
covered and christened the Spanish Isle : — 

" Hispaniola is a marvel ; the sierras and forests, plains and 
prairies are so comely and fertile for planting and sowing, for 
raising cattle of all kinds, for the building of cities and settle- 
ments. The seaports would not be credited in Europe without 
being seen, and the rivers are many and wide, with good water, 
most of them carrying gold. Here are great mines of gold and 
other metals." 

In this fair region Nature had been lavish in her gifts : — 

" The trees are of a thousand varieties and appear to reach 
the skies. From what I understand they never lose their foliage, 
for I saw them as green and beautiful as in the month of May in 



14 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Spain. Some of them bear flowers, others fruits, and others 
neither, according to their kind. The nightingale and a thou- 
sand other birds were singing there when 1 was travelHng, in the 
month of November. There are six or eight different varieties 
of palms, which it is a delight to see, so various is their beauty, 
and even more so the other trees and fruits and herbs. There 
are marvellous pine forests, and vast meadows, and honey, and 
many kinds of birds and fruits, all very unlike. In those lands 
are many mines of metals, and people beyond count." 

Tiie inhabitants of this paradise were not of a sort to 
offer impediment to any scheme of conquest or aggrandize- 
ment which the Spaniards might set on foot. 

*' The people of these islands and all others of which I had 
news go naked as the day they were born. They have neither 
iron nor steel, and no weapons at all, nor are they fitted to use 
them. They have no arms other than the stalks of canes at 
seed-time, to which they fasten sharpened bits of wood, and they 
do not dare to use even these ; for it often befell that I sent two 
or three of my men ashore to some village to communicate with 
the natives, and a great crowd would come out to meet them, 
and as soon as they drew^ near would take to flight without wait- 
ing for father or son. They are timid past hope. The truth is, 
that as soon as they become quieted and lose this dread, they 
are so guileless and generous with what they possess that it will 
not be believed unless it is seen. They never say 'no' to a 
request for anything they have ; rather do they offer it to one, 
and show such affection that they would give away their hearts. 
Whatever is given them, whether it be of value or of no account, 
they are satisfied. I had to prohibit the sailors giving them such 
common things as a bit of a broken pot or of broken glass, and 
such like ; for one sailor traded off a needle for two and a half 
ounces of gold, and for new copper coins they would give all 
they had, even to two or three ounces of gold or one or two 
arrobas of cotton yarn. Even the pieces of iron hoops they 
would accept, and give in exchange everything they had, like 
fools, until I had to put a stop to it, for it seemed ill to me." 

All these fair lands, with their hordes of gentle savages 
and promise of fabulous wealth, had been annexed by 
Columbus to the domains of Ferdinand and Isabella, and a 
garrison left therein in token of possession and as an earnest 
of immediate return. 



NEW LANDS BEYOND THE SEA. 1 5 

" These countries are richer than I know how to say, and I 
have taken possession of them all for their Majesties, who can 
now dispose of them in the same manner and as completely as 
they do of these Kingdoms of Castile. In this Hispaniola, in 
the most convenient place and best neighborhood for the mines 
of gold and for all kinds of commerce, — both with the continent 
over here [Europe] and that out there, of the Great Khan, where 
there will be great traffic and profit, — I have also taken posses- 
sion of a large city which I have named Navidad, and in it have 
built a fortress and keep, which by this time should be entirely 
finished. In it I have left enough people for the purpose, with 
arms and artillery and supplies for more than a year, and a barge 
and a shipmaster competent to work in all the crafts ; and have 
established friendship with the King of that country to such a 
degree that he prided himself on calling me and treating me as 
a brother. 

" Even if the natives should change their disposition and wish 
to harm our people, neither the King nor his subjects know what 
arms are, but go naked, as I have said, and are the most timid 
people in the world." 

No stronger appeal could have been made to the spirits 
and passions of the daring subjects of Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella. Strange lands beyond an unknown sea, a child-like 
race of defenceless beings, gold thrust upon the newcomer 
by the handful, vast regions of dazzling wealth to be explored 
and won. These were no travellers' tales, moreover, for 
there were the tawny children of the Indies following the 
Admiral in his progress through Southern Spain, and with 
them were borne chains and ornaments of massive gold, 
birds of resplendent plumage, beasts of unheard-of shapes, 
and scores of the curious products of an unfamiliar Nature. 
That were a campaign better worth the waging to cavalier 
and man-at-arms than any offered in the Pyrenees or Cala- 
bria ; and those were fairer havens for the mariner to seek 
than any that lay within the orbit of the Midland Sea or 
down the parched shores of Western Africa. So there was 
like to be no lack of men for the return voyage to the new- 
found Indies. 

In those presumably serener regions of the Court where 
Statecraft waited upon Royalty, the eager gratification 
inspired by the news of this latest acquisition to the grow- 



l6 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ing power of Spain was tinctured with a jealous fear lest, 
after all, the broad ducats which Castile had adventured 
in the brilliant schemes of the Genoese navigator had not 
merely paved the way for Portugal to reach the Orient by a 
shorter route than any heretofore attempted. The rivalry 
between the two nations of the Peninsula, to reach by sea 
the countries of Prester John and the Grand Khan, dated 
from early in this century. Both competitors were ham- 
pered by the grave doubts which existed as to just where the 
teeming treasures of the East were to be found in the bound- 
less expanse of ocean which lay outside the Straits of Gib- 
raltar. No such anxiety had beset the Venetians, who had 
thus far controlled the traffic with the Orient : their ships 
sailed peacefully down the Mediterranean to Aleppo or 
Alexandria and there received the precious bales which had 
been brought up the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea. But the 
task set the geographers and mariners of Portugal and Spain 
when, early in the fifteenth century, their sovereigns deter- 
mined to explore the Western Ocean, was far more arduous. 
Had they possessed no maps at all, it should have been 
easier, for such as they had served only to perpetuate error 
and lend it a false authority. No one knew whether lands, 
seas, or Chaos lay south of the equator. As to the West, 
there was greater certainty : out there lay the Sea of Shadows 
and the confines of Earth itself. It is to the credit both of 
monarchs and seamen that a beginning was ever made to 
maritime discovery in the face of the vast mass of tradi- 
tional terrors accumulated in the course of a thousand years 
of intellectual stagnation. But roving priests and merchants 
told alluring tales of the fantastic wealth of Asiatic and 
African potentates, while Venetians and Moors spread 
through Spain and Portugal the love of beautiful things and 
the things themselves, until the western nations would no 
longer take their luxury at second hand and resolved to seek 
its source. There was an East, beyond a peradventure : 
and within its nebulous precincts lay India and Cathay, 
Cipango and Ceylon, and the Javas, — Major and Minor. 
Outside of these great kingdoms was ocean; therefore, 
since Venice commanded the only accessible routes by 
land, by ocean must the East be sought. 



NEW LANDS BEYOND THE SEA. 17 

Hence both Spanish and Portuguese began to grope out- 
side the gates of the Mediterranean. They followed naturally 
the southern trend of the African coasts, blown sometimes 
far out to sea by easterly gales. Some of the bolder souls 
headed straight out into the West in search of the lost islands 
of the monkish legends and Arab chronicles. Thus the 
Spaniards sailed along the African coasts and discovered the 
Canary Islands; only to be surpassed by the Portuguese in 
a series of voyages which, for their hardihood, deserve a 
larger share of popular fame than they are likely to receive 
in view of the more romantic achievements which so soon 
succeeded them. The Azores, Madeira, and the Cape de 
Verd Islands were discovered and seized, and the African 
headlands were passed in succession, as voyage followed 
voyage, until the Cape of Good Hope was reached four 
years before Columbus landed on San Salvador. Here the 
Portuguese had paused, on the very threshold of the Orient. 
The merchants of Seville and Lisbon maintained a certain 
traflfic in gold and negro slaves with the tribes of Guinea 
and the Congo, but Spain and Portugal alike were as far as 
ever from the spices and priceless fabrics of the lands be- 
yond the Ganges. Absorbed in their Moorish wars, the 
Spaniards had all but withdrawn from the rivalry, and what 
advantage there was thus far remained with Portugal, for she 
established a few forts along the vast extent of the African 
littoral and asserted a monopoly to all navigation in that 
direction. 

It was at this juncture that Columbus made his notable 
contract with Ferdinand and Isabella and started westward 
across the Ocean Sea in search of a direct route to India. 
He had, as we know, taken part in several voyages to the 
Guinea coasts under the auspices of the Portuguese Crown, 
and the experience thus gained stood him in good stead on 
more than one occasion on his own Discovery. Familiar 
with the aspirations of Portugal in respect of an indepen- 
dent path to the Indies, he had kept inflexibly upon his guard, 
when his services were transferred to Spain, against the 
treachery or subtlety of his quondam associates. That there 
was need for such caution was abundantly shown both on his 



1 8 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

outward voyage, when he had to manoeuvre to escape the 
Portuguese squadron sent to intercept him off the Canaries, 
and on his return, when he so narrowly escaped seizure by 
the Governor of the island of Santa Maria in the Azores. 
A fortnight later, when the foundering "Nifia" staggered 
into the Tagus, and her commander was received, as an 
Admiral of Castile returning from the Indies, by the Port- 
uguese King, the latter was loth to believe that the voyage 
had been made across the Western Ocean and plainly inti- 
mated his belief that Columbus had reached his goal by 
sailing around Africa. If the new Admiral were telling the 
truth, Spain had outwitted Portugal and won the race to the 
Orient. This King John would ascertain for himself, and 
meanwhile do his utmost to deter any more Spanish squad- 
rons from following up the advantage. 

A hint of this purpose reached Columbus as he lay at 
anchor in the Tagus, and he hastened to transmit it over- 
land to his sovereigns, while he made all speed with his 
little ship from the doubtful safety of Lisbon to the surer 
haven of Palos. From here he wrote again to Ferdinand 
and Isabella and received their reply on reaching Seville, as 
he journeyed towards Barcelona to make his report in per- 
son to the King and Queen. The royal missive in one 
paragraph lauded the Admiral's achievements in the voy- 
age just finished, and in the next urged him to hasten the 
preparations for his return to the regions he had discovered. 
" As you know," his patrons wrote, " the summer has already 
begun and, in order that the season for returning to those 
countries may not be lost, see whether you can do anything 
in Seville, or the other places you may visit, to advance 
your return." No reference was made to the schemes of 
Portugal; but the omission did not signify that Ferdinand 
and Isabella were ignorant of or indifferent to them. They 
had already taken measures to meet any attempt at interfer- 
ence on the part of their neighbor with a weapon whose 
thunder drowned that of the loudest lombards on the Portu- 
guese decks, — the menace of St. Peter. 

The letters dispatched by Columbus overland from Lis- 
bon could not have reached the Court at Barcelona before 



NEW LANDS BEYOND THE SEA. 19 

the 25th of March. Five weeks later, on May 2nd, 3rd, and 
4th, Pope Alexander VI. issued at Rome his famous Bulls 
by which all the world which lay beyond a line drawn from 
Pole to Pole, four hundred miles west of the Azores, " in 
the direction of India or of whatever other parts," was 
declared to belong to the Spanish Crown by virtue of the 
discoveries made by its Admiral. The promulgation of 
these formidable decrees could not be a matter of indiffer- 
ence to Portugal, since she held her exclusive right to navi- 
gate to the eastward by a similar tenure granted in 147 1; 
that is, " by the authority of Almighty God, to us [the Pope], 
through St. Peter granted, and of the Vicariate of Jesus 
Christ which we exercise over the Earth." Consequently 
Portugal, in plotting to traverse the projects of Spain in 
the West, was not only incurring her wrath but that of the 
Vatican as well, and, as the Bull proclaimed, "the anger 
of the Omnipotent and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and 
Paul. " The conjunction was, assuredly, a sufficiently threat- 
ening one, but King John proposed to brave it, cost what it 
might. 

Columbus himself reached Barcelona about the 20th of 
April; the exact date is uncertain. Las Casas tells us that, 
after his dazzling reception by the King and Queen, the 
Admiral was daily in close consultation with their Majes- 
ties, relating to them all the incidents of his explorations, 
informing them of the natural resources of the islands 
visited, and inspiring them with his own enthusiastic be- 
liefs and aims concerning the policy to be pursued in the 
near future. Ferdinand and Isabella entered into all of his 
plans with an abandon of which we find no other vestige in 
the earlier or later history of their well-regulated lives, — 
unless it be in the zest with which they maintained the 
Inquisition. They fully shared their Admiral's confidence 
that Cuba and Hayti were within easy sail of the Spice 
Islands and Cathay, and unreservedly pledged him their 
support in the prosecution of his great project for placing 
the control of the Indian trade in the hands of Spain. At 
these conferences the details of the comprehensive scheme 
were debated and adopted, and by the ist of May all the 



20 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

energies of the government were engaged in the task of 
dispatching an adequate armament to continue the work so 
auspiciously begun. This second expedition was to be no 
mere handful of exploring caravels. It was to be so consti- 
tuted as to provide for all contingencies, — to repel any 
attempt that might be made by Portugal to prevent its de- 
parture or disperse it while on the voyage; to convey a 
large body of colonists to settle in Hispaniola; to defend 
the colonies thus established and supply them with the 
means of communication with Spain; to continue the 
work of exploration and enable the Admiral to open 
the coveted relations with the dominions of the Grand 
Khan; to furnish vessels for the immediate transportation 
to Spain of the store of gold, drugs, and other valuable prod- 
ucts accumulated by the garrison which Columbus had left, 
for this purpose, at Navidad in King Guacanagari's terri- 
tory; and, finally, to determine the all-important question 
as to whether Cuba was in truth an island or a part of the 
Asiatic continent. 

While at Seville Columbus had set on foot the prelimi- 
naries of this new undertaking, and the King and Queen 
now associated with him in the manifold preparations Don 
Juan de Fonseca, archdeacon of that See. The choice of 
Seville as a base of operations was a wise one, both because 
of its convenient situation on the Guadalquivir and its long 
established maritime commerce. The selection of Fon- 
seca — a crafty worldling in churchly garb — proved fatal 
to the personal hopes and ambitions of his colleague. In 
all that related to this second voyage, however, Ferdinand 
and Isabella deferred to Columbus to a degree little less 
than amazing. It is no exaggeration to say — for scores of 
documents prove it — that his wish was absolute law. Those 
who disputed or opposed it were promptly called to account 
by sharp personal letters from the King and Queen. In no 
instance, at this period, do we find the Churchman supported 
as against the Admiral. On the contrary, he was often 
made by the sovereigns, in no gentle terms, to yield to his 
colleague's preferences. Later on, he had his revenge.^ 

1 "This Don Juan de Fonseca," says Las Casas, who knew him thor- 
oughly, " although a priest and an archdeacon, and, after the sovereigns 



NEW LANDS BEYOND THE SEA. 21 

Columbus and Fonseca were instructed by their sover- 
eigns primarily " to prepare a fleet to go to the Indies, both 
to conquer and to take possession of the islands and main- 
land ^ already seized in our name, as well as to seek out 
others." To this end they were directed to visit "Seville, 
Cadiz, and whatever other cities, towns, places, and ports 
in Andalusia they might think convenient," and there 
charter or buy any and all vessels, of whatever class, which 
Columbus should select as desirable for his purpose. The 
authorities all along that seaboard were, by name, required 
to assist them in obtaining such vessels and in manning and 
equipping them. Columbus himself was charged to take 
only the best craft obtainable, and to pick his pilots and 
crews from among those " who best knew their profession 
and were most trustworthy." 

Scarcely had these first orders been issued when definite 
news was received that the apprehended interference of 
Portugal was about to take shape. From his seaport of 
Santa Maria in Andalusia, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, 
one of the most powerful of the Spanish grandees, wrote 
to the King and Queen, warning them that King John was 
actually preparing a fleet to send out into " those parts of 
the Ocean Sea which have just been discovered by the 
Admiral Don Christopher Columbus," and placing his im- 
mense influence and resources at the service of their Majes- 
ties to thwart the efforts of their rival. Ferdinand and 
Isabella hastened to thank the Duke, their "dear cousin," 
calling upon him to make ready all the caravels of his dis- 
trict to be used in case of emergency, and instantly redoubled 
their efforts to dispatch Columbus and his fleet. The royal 
secretaries were overtasked with the multitude of decrees, 

had given him charge of the Indies, bishop of Badajoz and Palencia, 
and finally of Burgos, where he died, was very capable in worldly affairs, 
particularly in recruiting military men for naval armaments, — which 
was rather a business for Basques than for bishops. For this reason, 
as long as they lived, their Majesties always entrusted him with the 
preparation of the expeditions they sent to sea." 

^ This "mainland" was Cuba; Columbus, after no little hesitation, 
having leaned at last to the belief that no island could be so vast as he 
then believed Cuba to be. 



22 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

letters, and rescripts which flowed from the almost frantic 
zeal of their sovereigns. The treasurers of the various royal 
funds, the authorities of cities and provinces, the comptrol- 
lers of the finances, officials military, ecclesiastical, and civil, 
diplomats and merchants, — all in turn were assailed with 
orders, entreaties, or remonstrances, as the case demanded. 
The archives of the period teem with documents testifying 
to the extreme activity which suddenly permeated every 
branch of government, and to the thoroughness with which 
the Crown sought to provide for the safe execution of its 
plans in face of the danger confronting them. 

An immense store of provisions and wine was accumu- 
lated at Seville, sufficient to last throughout the voyage and 
to maintain the proposed colonies in Hispaniola pending 
the arrival of later shipments. Great quantities of trinkets 
for barter with the natives were purchased, — beads, bells, 
scissors, glass, needles, strap-iron, and such like. Seeds 
and plants for the use of the colonists; cattle, horses, and 
fowls for breeding; building materials, ship-stores, artisans' 
and armorers' tools and supplies, miners' implements, and 
clothing, — everything, in short, likely to be needed for 
establishing and maintaining a considerable settlement in 
a savage country was provided in abundance. To aid in 
supporting the colony a party of skilled field laborers was 
to be taken along, selected from those who were familiar 
with the work of breaking and tilling new lands, and to 
them was added a man expert in the construction of the 
irrigating ditches so important to Spanish agriculture. 
No doubt crossed the mind of King, Admiral, or officials 
that ere long the colonies would be in touch with the over- 
flowing marts of Cathay and Cipango; but, until such direct 
communication were opened, it was known that the Span- 
ish settlers and explorers would be dependent upon the 
home country for the satisfaction of their needs. 

For their protection and defence an equal care was shown. 
The magazines of Malaga were drawn on for fifty sets of 
armor, together with as many arquebuses and cross-bows. 
The chief of artillery at Seville was ordered to furnish all 
the lombards needed, with their supply of powder and stone 



NEW LANDS BEYOND THE SEA. 23 

shot. The famous Hermandad, or Holy Brotherhood, which 
had been organized to act as a mounted police in the 
troublous times of the Moorish wars, was required to supply 
twenty men-at-arms, with their mounts, picked from the 
veteran scouts and guerillas of the Granadan frontiers and 
practised in the border tactics of the wily Moors. The 
duty of this corps in the Indies, it was stated, should be 
"to search the country; beause they, in a short time, will 
know how to do this better than any others." Only those 
who should offer to go "with a good will " were to be ac- 
cepted; but, to make assurance doubly sure, Villalva, the 
Inspector of the Brotherhood, was ordered to conduct his 
troopers to Seville and not leave them until they were safely 
on board the ships. 

The number of men of all kinds — volunteers, colonists, 
and officials — allowed to sail was originally fixed at one 
thousand. The difficulty was not to find these, but rather 
to choose from the multitude which offered, and the pres- 
sure finally became so great that the number was increased 
to twelve hundred. All of these were entitled to draw 
rations from the government stores and to receive a 
stipend, varying with their rank. It soon became appar- 
ent that the cost of the enterprise would be enormous; but 
for once the frugal caution of Ferdinand and his consort 
was laid aside, in consideration of the brilliant prospect 
of immediate aggrandizement. The royal treasury was at 
its lowest ebb, and resort was had to various shifts for the 
indispensable ways and means. The Holy Brotherhood was 
asked to find 15,000 ducats, or nearly 6,000,000 maravedies, 
towards meeting the expense. The special tax of the tercia, 
levied originally for the conquest of Granada, was contin- 
ued or revived to provide another part. Still a third source 
of funds was the confiscated wealth of the recently expelled 
Jews. Candor compels the admission that most of the 
money embarked in this armada for the acquisition and 
settlement of the future America was stained with the 
grime of extortion; but little of that in circulation at the 
time was free from a like imputation. Whatever their 
origin, the millions of maravedies expended on the expe- 



24 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

dition were hardly raised and their disbursement was cor- 
respondingly scrutinized. The precautions taken by the 
Crown to ensure a legitimate distribution of its supplies of 
cash speak well for the business methods of the govern- 
ment, or ill for the honesty of its servants, as we may 
choose to interpret them. In the instructions issued to 
Columbus and Fonseca great stress was laid upon the 
necessity of registering before notaries public all contracts 
and engagements entered into, and Juan de Soria, of their 
Majesties' household, was named to have the supervision 
of all outlays. Francisco Pinelo, one of the royal treas- 
urers, was directed to keep a minute account of the ex- 
penses, and a detail of accountants was made to go out to 
Hispaniola to establish there a similarly rigid system of 
book-keeping. Ferdinand and Isabella had already issued 
a decree forbidding any one to make a voyage to the new- 
found Indies without their express sanction, and they now 
proclaimed that all traffic with those lands was a monopoly 
of the Crown, and that no one sailing on this fleet was to 
carry with him any article of barter whatever. To ensure 
compliance with this order, Soria was required to put 
under oath every soul who should embark, and register 
each and every article they possessed. In the event of 
their attempting to evade the law on reaching Hispaniola, 
their property was to be confiscated. 

All of these measures, and many others relating to de- 
tails, were planned and authorized during the month of 
May, while Columbus was still with the Court at Barcelona. 
Ferdinand and Isabella hoped to have everything in readi- 
ness so that the fleet might sail by the 15th of July, and 
they consequently desired that Columbus should be enabled 
to leave the Court at the earliest date practicable and to 
give his personal attention to the execution of the elabo- 
rate preparations. As soon, therefore, as the royal orders 
and decrees relating to the equipment of the fleet had all 
been issued, the King and Queen proceeded to fulfil their 
promises of reward and honor to the man who had brought 
them these boundless possessions. A resplendent coat-of- 
arms was bestowed upon the Admiral, whereon the castles 



NEW LANDS BEYOND THE SEA. 25 

and lions of the royal escutcheon were quartered with three 
anchors and seven islands, indicative of the profession and 
discoveries of the new grandee. One thousand ducats were 
paid him as a largess, besides the pension awarded him for 
first having espied the land, or, to be more exact, the light 
thereon. Of greater moment was the solemn confirmation 
to him and his heirs of the titles and prerogatives pledged 
to him, under the agreement of April 30th, 1492, in the 
event of his discovering the "islands and mainland" 
beyond the Ocean Sea. He had performed his part of the 
contract, and had petitioned the sovereigns to comply with 
theirs. This Ferdinand and Isabella accordingly pro- 
ceeded to do, — so far, at least, as the handsome engross- 
ing of parchments went. Perhaps they really intended, 
at that time, to keep their engagements with the Admiral. 
He certainly was justified in thinking so when he read the 
text of their solemn ratification of their pledges of the year 
before. The document was dated on the 28th of May, and 
began with this comprehensive invocation : " In the name 
of the Holy Trinity and Eternal Unity, Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit; and of the Blessed Virgin the Glorious St. 
Mary, Our Lady; and of the Blessed Apostle St. James, 
Light and Mirror of All Spain, Patron and Guide of the 
Sovereigns of Castile and Leon; and of all the other 
Saints, Male and Female, in the Courts of Heaven." Hav- 
ing summoned this cloud of witnesses to attest their sin- 
cerity and earnestness, the King and Queen, "considering 
the risk and danger in which, for our benefit, you [Colum- 
bus] placed yourself in going to search for and to discover 
these islands, and also that in which you are now placing 
yourself in going to seek other islands and the mainland," 
confirmed to Columbus and to his " sons, descendants, and 
successors, one after the other and for all future time, the 
stipulated offices of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Viceroy 
and Governor of the islands and mainland which you have 
discovered, and of the other islands and mainland which 
by you, or through your labors, shall be hereafter discov- 
ered in the direction of the Indies." These were far from 
empty honors, for the same instrument guaranteed to 



26 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Columbus and his heirs, for ever and ever, "all the pre- 
rogatives, distinctions, rights, and salaries" enjoyed by the 
Admirals of Castile and Leon, and, within the unmarked 
limits of his new vice-kingdom, absolute jurisdiction zvith- 
out appeal in all causes, civil as well as criminal, with 
power to issue writs and decrees in the name of the King 
and Queen, and to use the royal seal. 

Well might Columbus feel secure when the rubrics of his 
sovereigns were attached to this weighty instrument, and 
jealously might he guard it throughout his life; for he, at 
least, had some approximate realization of the vast power 
and profit which it involved. Considered in its purely 
commercial aspect, it assured to him one-tenth of all the 
products of the lands discovered either directly by him or 
through his instrumentality, besides the right of trading 
on his personal account to the extent of one-eighth of the 
entire future commerce between Spain and whatever do- 
minions should become hers in the New World. Just what 
these dominions might be, or what the import of their 
possible trafific with Spain, was of course problematical; 
but it is idle to claim that Ferdinand and Isabella, two of 
the most astute — not to say of the craftiest — monarchs in 
Christendom, did not realize what they were doing when 
they conferred these broad powers and great privileges upon 
their Admiral. They, as well as he, believed that he had 
reached the eastern confines of Asia on his first voyage; 
they, as well as he, knew that this second fleet now prepar- 
ing was destined for the establishment of a permanent 
trade with the realms of the Grand Khan and the kings of 
the Orient, if not for their conquest, — with those very prov- 
inces and islands whose fabulous wealth had excited the 
cupidity of Spanish and Portuguese alike for nearly a cen- 
tury past. The bargain was, if anything, unduly favorable 
to the Crown. " Win for us a short road to that dazzling 
East, wherever it maybe," the monarchs had, in effect, said 
to the Genoese sailor, "and we will do thus and so for 
you." They shared with him the belief that the East had 
been reached, and in reserving for themselves seven-eighths 
of the commerce with what they thought was the Asiatic 



NEW LANDS BEYOND THE SEA. 2/ 

continent and the Celebes, and nine-tenths of the revenue 
from those regions, they were, the impartial observer would 
think, amply providing for their own compensation. 

In addition to this confirmation of his rank and privi- 
leges, Columbus also received at this time from their 
Majesties his commission as Captain-General of the fleet 
which was fitting out, a letter of instructions for the con- 
duct of the enterprise, and several decrees relating to de- 
tails for the administration of the proposed colonies. We 
shall look in vain through the annals of far more arbitrary 
governments than was that of Ferdinand and Isabella with- 
out finding wider powers granted to favorite minister or 
successful courtier than those now bestowed upon this un- 
tried Viceroy. A scant year before he was a penniless 
pensioner of the rulers who now transferred to him the 
most jealously guarded prerogatives of royalty. Not con- 
tent with conferring upon him the unrestrained power to 
dispose, without exception, of the lives and property of 
their future subjects beyond the sea, the Spanish monarchs 
voluntarily surrendered the right of veto which, in the 
original contract, they had reserved over all the appoint- 
ments made by Columbus, and now granted him authority 
to make such directly. Moreover, they empowered him, 
" in the event of it proving desirable for him to go in 
search of other islands and the mainland " after the colony 
was established in Hispaniola, to appoint a deputy or 
lieutenant armed with all his authority, even to the use of 
the royal seal entrusted to the Viceroy himself. In short, 
beyond the Ocean Sea, Columbus was to stand for the 
Crown, untrammelled, absolute, and irresponsible. 

There seems to be no doubt that Ferdinand and Isabella 
realized that the conditions of a government established 
over the unknown races of a remote and isolated territory, 
where all was as yet pure matter of conjecture, differed so 
essentially from those of a European province or princi- 
pality that true policy demanded a rigid abstention from 
all interference by the Crown. Had they pursued this con- 
viction with fidelity, the subsequent history of their Admiral 
and his vice-kingdom would have been far different; but 



28 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

even at this early date, when their confidence in him knew 
no bounds, and when each day bore witness to their desire 
to sustain him in every action, the force of habit imperiously 
asserted itself, and some order or nomination would issue 
to controvert the wise system so laboriously established on 
scores of parchments. Many of the royal dependants were ap- 
pointed as inspectors, comptrollers, notaries, supercargoes, 
and to similar offices of trust and responsibility. Thus, 
one Alonso de Acosta was sent out as captain of a ship, 
with the position of algiiazil, or justice, assured him upon 
reaching the Indies. Bernal de Pisa was to be chief lieu- 
tenant to the comptrollers of accounts in Hispaniola, and 
was furnished by the King and Queen with detailed instruc- 
tions as to his proceedings when there. Diego Marquez 
was to go as Inspector for the Crown. Sebastian de Olano 
was sent to Columbus as their Majesties' choice for the 
Receiver-General of the Indies, and the Admiral was asked 
to take good care of him and the officers who accompanied 
him. Juan de Aguado was to go with the fleet, at her 
Majesty's express desire, in any capacity which should 
offer. "I wish to have him well treated," wrote Isabella 
to Columbus, "as he is my servant and has been of much 
use to me. Give him some good office in the expedition, 
where he may advance my interests and receive some bene- 
fit as well." All of these were Court officials, — gentlemen 
in waiting, chamberlains, ushers, and the like, — but the 
appointments were not confined to the positions of less 
degree. Francisco de Peiialosa and Alonso de Vallejo, cap- 
tains of the royal guards, were sent to command some of 
the anticipated military operations; Dr. Chanca, one of the 
Queen's own physicians, was selected as surgeon-in-chief 
to the Admiral; and last, but chief of all. Fray Boil, a 
Benedictine monk, and eleven fellow clerics, were chosen 
to go with the fleet in order to gather the hordes of Asia 
into the fold of the Church. Surely herein lay all the ele- 
ments needed for conspiracy and rebellion, should any 
plotter ever attempt to sow discord between the officials 
who held their appointments direct from the Crown and 
those who owed their advancement to the brand-new Vice- 



jV£JV lands beyond THE SEA. 29 

roy. All that was needed was distance and discontent, and 
Time might safely be trusted to furnish these. It is true 
that not all of the nominees of the King and Queen were 
obnoxious to Columbus, and that when he objected his com- 
plaint was heeded. That Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, 
whom we have seen keeping watch with Columbus on the 
fateful night in October the year before, when the moon 
shone on the sands of Guanahani, had been proposed by their 
Majesties to accompany the Admiral on this second voyage 
as an officer of the Crown. Columbus represented that for 
certain causes he was not on good terms with Sanchez, and 
immediately orders were issued that the latter was not to 
be permitted to go upon any consideration, even should it 
be necessary to reimburse him for the outlays already made 
in anticipation of the voyage.^ Moreover, the royal man- 
date ran, " We do not wish that any one with whom the 
Admiral has any grievance should go." Doubtless the King 
and Queen were as ready to withdraw any of their presenta- 
tions as this one; but it was not in the Admiral's power to 
scrutinize them all, even had he been willing to oppose the 
repeated expressions of his sovereigns' preference, and thus 
were sown the seeds of dissension and disaster. 

The letter of instructions delivered to Columbus on the 
eve of his departure from the Court was a singular com- 
pound of pious bigotry and worldly prudence. When we 
recall the fact that it was intended to provide for the sub- 
jugation and administration of the empires of Eastern Asia, 
we cannot but admire the colossal confidence of the Span- 
ish monarchs both in themselves and their Viceroy. The 
first care was, ostensibly, for the natives of the countries it 
was proposed to colonize. These, it was declared, were to 

1 This Rodrigo Sanchez was the royal inspector on the first voyage, 
and one of the two persons to whom Columbus appealed when he saw 
the light early on the night on which Guanahani was seen. The King 
and Queen had his report before them when they adjudged the reward 
to Columbus for having observed the light four hours before Juan 
Bermejo saw the moonlit sands. In view of the persistent effort which 
has been made to show that Columbus defrauded this " poor sailor," 
the fact that the Inspector, though not the Admiral's friend, did not 
dispute the justice of his claim, is not without significance. 



30 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

be converted by the labors of Father Boil and his associ- 
ates, assisted by some of the Indians who had returned with 
Columbus from the first voyage and were now somewhat 
instructed both in the religion of Rome and the language 
of Castile. "All who sail in the armada," their Majesties 
insisted, " and all who shall go from here in the future, are 
to treat the said Indians very well and tenderly, without 
giving them any offence whatever, endeavoring to establish 
close companionship and acquaintance with them and doing 
them the best offices possible. And the said Admiral shall 
freely give them various presents from the articles of mer- 
chandise belonging to the Crown, which are taken along for 
purposes of traffic, and shall do them much honor. And 
if any one shall ill-treat the said Indians, the Admiral, as 
Viceroy and Governor, shall severely chastise the offender, 
in virtue of the powers vested in him." Ecclesiastics and 
laymen alike were to endeavor to convert them, or, rather, 
since the Admiral had reported that they had no religion at 
all, to instil into their minds the principles of Christianity. 
"And because spiritual affairs cannot endure for long 
without temporal ones," sagaciously proceeded this docu- 
ment, sundry regulations were laid down for the Admiral's 
guidance in the government of his viceregal charge. These 
relate to the prevention of all traffic except for account of 
the Crown; to the keeping exact accounts for all arms, 
provisions, munitions, and merchandise; to the establish- 
ing a judiciary and police; to the forms to be employed 
in decrees and official acts; to the institution of a custom- 
house and the collection of the revenue, and to other details 
of the kind. Two measures embraced in these instructions 
are worthy of note. The first implied that some apprehen- 
sion already existed of future insubordination on the part of 
the ill-disposed, once the restraining influences of the home 
government were left behind; for explicit orders were given 
that if the Admiral, after reaching Hispaniola, should send 
any ships upon voyages of discovery or trade, their cap- 
tains and crews were to obey him implicitly, upon pain of 
such punishment as he should choose to administer upon 
their persons or goods. The other defined distinctly the 



NEW LANDS BEYOND THE SEA. 3 1 

portion to be received by Columbus in the profits of the 
Indies. "The Admiral is to receive the one-eighth part," 
recites the letter, "of everything that may be obtained in 
gold and other products in the islands and mainland, he to 
pay one-eighth of the cost of the merchandise employed in 
such commerce; first deducting the one-tenth part of the 
profit which the Admiral is to receive in the manner estab- 
lished by the contract which their Majesties caused to be 
executed with the said Admiral." It is difficult to see how 
any contention could arise as to the meaning of this oft- 
repeated engagement, or why it should have been reiter- 
ated, in season and out of season, if their Majesties 
intended to ignore it at the first convenient opportunity. 

The delivery of these instructions completed the prelim- 
inary arrangements, so far as they could be ordered from a 
distance. With a mind at ease concerning the dispositions 
already made for the success of his approaching voyage, 
with a complete understanding established between his sov- 
ereigns and himself regarding the conduct of affairs in the 
Indies, and with their solemn guarantee of the honors and 
rewards which were his due in virtue of the faithful per- 
formance of his gigantic undertaking, Columbus took leave 
of the King and Queen and set out for Seville, accompanied 
beyond the gates of Barcelona by the whole ceremonious 
Court. 




11. 



FOUNDING THE GREAT MONOPOLY. 



THE second day after leaving Barcelona Columbus heard 
that the King of Portugal had despatched certain cara- 
vels from Lisbon, presumably with the intention of seeking 
the Indies discovered by the Spanish ships the year before. 
These tidings he at once transmitted to Ferdinand and 
Isabella, and received as promptly a reply by courier say- 
ing that the news "agrees with what we know here," and 
asking to be advised in good season of whatever else he 
might learn. The rumor served to quicken the anxiety of the 
King and Queen that their fleet should set sail before King 
John's captains succeeded in finding their way across the 
Western Ocean. Shortly after Columbus had arrived at 
Court in April and reported his conversation with the King 
of Portugal, Ferdinand and Isabella had sent an ambassa- 
dor to demand from their royal brother a declaration of 
his intentions with regard to the discoveries made by their 
Admiral. This emissary returned to Barcelona a few days 
after Columbus had started from Seville, bringing assur- 
ances from King John that his only desire was that " each 
Crown should hold what belongs to it " ; but the ambiguous 
reply only increased the suspicions of Ferdinand, and he 
sent another messenger after Columbus, urging him to make 
haste to sail at an early date. "If you can start the 
sooner," continued the letter, "by leaving some of the ships 
behind for the present and taking fewer people with you 
than was first proposed, do as you think best; but if you 
have cause to doubt the sincerity of the King of Portugal, 
32 



FOUNDING THE GREAT MONOPOLY. 33 

be sure and take them all." This new doubt which had 
arisen called for extreme precautions, — the possibility of 
a collision occurring, either in the Indies or on the way 
thither, between the force commanded by Columbus and 
that believed to be sent out by King John. At any cost 
Spain was determined to retain the fruits of her Admiral's 
boldness and sagacity, and the correspondence between 
the sovereigns and Columbus began to assume a distinctly 
warlike tone. 

The weeks, however, passed without further alarms. 
Columbus reached Seville, visited the neighboring sea- 
ports to choose his ships and their crews, and infused into 
all of the preparations something of his wonted energy and 
enthusiasm. Still the day set for his departure, the 15th 
of July, arrived and there was no prospect of the fleet get- 
ting away. Ferdinand and Isabella wrote to Fonseca, 
urging him to hasten its sailing by all practicable means. 
If, they wrote, the delay was due to the Admiral's desire 
to assemble an armament capable of holding its own with 
the Portuguese in case of an encounter, let him sail at 
once with what he had ready, and Fonseca could remain 
in Seville and prepare another fleet to send after the 
Admiral to reenforce him. Columbus leaned strongly 
towards some such plan as that attributed to him by the 
sovereigns. From Cordova, where he had gone to visit 
his family and inspect the supplies gathered at that depot 
for the expedition, he had written to the King and Queen 
suggesting that King John was holding back the Portuguese 
squadron in order to let the Spaniards sail first, intending 
to follow them and come to an engagement whenever 
occasion might serve. To provide for such a contingency, 
the Admiral proposed that more strength be -given to the 
military side of this expedition. He asked their Majes- 
ties that the magazines of Granada and Malaga might be 
drawn upon for a larger equipment of artillery, armor, and 
ammunition than had been provided, and that competent 
leaders might be ordered to accompany him. In especial 
he repeated a suggestion already made at Barcelona, that 
Melchor Maldonado, who had, some five years before, suc- 

3 



34 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

cessfully directed the expedition sent by Spain to the as- 
sistance of her ally, the King of Naples, should go to the 
Indies in command of the troops. He also urged another 
measure which had been broached at Court, namely, that 
the formidable squadron known as the "Galician," from 
the province where it had been organized, should be 
detached from its coast duty and ordered to make part of 
his fleet. This squadron consisted of five warships, — 
the largest of them having a burthen of 1200 tons, — was 
commanded by Kigo de Artieta, a notable captain of the 
time, and was manned by 900 sturdy Basques who, like all 
true Celts, took a greater delight in fighting than in peace. 
The vessels were too deep and the crews too turbulent to 
be of use in colonizing or exploring the regions overseas, 
but if blows were to be struck, liiigo and his swarthy Bis- 
cayans were likely to prove an invincible escort. To most 
of these suggestions Ferdinand and Isabella replied with 
a ready affirmative; but they repeated insistently their 
recommendation that Columbus hasten his departure at all 
costs. They assured him that Fonseca had orders to ascer- 
tain the preparations making by King John, and to arm 
and send after Columbus, in case of necessity, a fleet to 
support him which should be at least twice as large as 
any of the Portuguese should equip. Nevertheless, they 
ordered Melchor Maldonado to join the Admiral at Seville, 
despite the valiant warrior's plea that serious impediments 
prevented his making the voyage. "We should gladly 
excuse you," wrote his amiable sovereigns, "but your 
going will greatly serve us, since you are who you are; 
therefore do we command you to go to the islands with 
Don Christopher Columbus." Orders were likewise de- 
spatched to the Galician fleet, which was lying in the port 
of Bermeo on the Bay of Biscay, to sail around the coasts 
of the Peninsula and report to the Admiral at Cadiz. The 
proposed draft of arms from Granada and Malaga was not 
approved, however, as their transportation to Seville would 
delay too long the sailing of the expedition, which was 
supposed by their Majesties to be almost ready. 

The month of July closed with every nerve strained by 



FOUNDING THE GREAT MONOPOLY. 35 

the Spanish officials to anticipate the schemes of Portugal. 
They were making rapid progress towards this end when 
a fresh cause of disquiet manifested itself in the excessive 
cost of the preparations. Concerning this a dispute 
arose between Juan de Soria, the comptroller, and Colum- 
bus. Ferdinand and Isabella learned of it early in August, 
through Fray Boil, the Benedictine monk, who began thus 
early to meddle in what concerned neither him nor his 
Church. They at once wrote to Fonseca, commenting 
forcibly upon the incident and insisting that " the Admiral 
be honored and obeyed by all, according to the rank which 
we have given him," and that Soria was to be told as much 
"on their Majesties' behalf." They also wrote a soothing 
letter to Columbus, which Fonseca was to deliver, "and 
say to him for us," the sovereigns added, "everything that 
seems desirable, so that he may be satisfied and consoled 
for the acts of those at Seville, and may hasten his depart- 
ure." To Soria himself they sent a stinging note, saying 
" we have heard of certain strange things you have done at 
Seville; that you do not regard and respect the Admiral of 
the Indies as is right and as we desire "; ordering him to 
obey the Admiral in all things thereafter, and declaring 
that for the contrary procedure they "will order punish- 
ment to be administered." Still, whatever may have been 
their comptroller's shortcomings in matters of tact, he was 
justified in his uneasiness at the rapid increase in the 
cost of the expedition. The sum originally provided had 
already been exhausted : it may have been enough for the 
projects of colonization and continued discovery, but it 
could not bear the enormous increase involved in the 
extensive preparations for a possible conflict with Portu- 
gal.^ The fleet was not yet ready to sail, no limit could 
be fixed to the outlay, and Ferdinand and Isabella were 
straitened for means with which to carry out their various 
projects. They had entered into an engagement with 
Boabdil, the unfortunate ex-king of Granada, that he and 

1 Nearly 6,000,000 maravedies were allotted to the Galician squadron 
alone, — six times the total amount granted Columbus for the squad- 
ron of discovery in the preceding year ! 



36 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

all his following of Moorish nobles and courtiers should 
be transported to Morocco during that summer, and for 
this purpose had set aside a million maravedies; but now 
they wrote Pinelo, their treasurer at Seville, asking him 
to advance this money to Columbus instead. "As you 
see," they said, "the winter is coming and it is desirable 
that the fleet should sail at once. ... If any money be 
wanting, do you provide it, even if for this you take the 
million which you are to give us for the Moorish King." 

From this time forward scarcely a letter was written by 
Ferdinand and Isabella which did not urge economy in 
every detail. To Columbus they wrote, on August 4th, in 
reply to a suggestion from him that more ships would be 
needed, on account of the room required by the horses : 
"If the horses cannot go in the Galician ships, see whether 
you cannot dispense with other things which are not so 
necessary, because of some scarcity of money which exists." 
In the same missive they approve his plan of placing a 
notary and accountant on each vessel, so that the records 
should be kept separately; "but," they added, "neither one 
officer nor the other is to receive greater pay than the other 
persons who are on board." "For our sakes," they again 
urge, " endeavor by all means in your power, in spending 
money, to avoid every unnecessary outlay, for there is some 
want of it, and we do not wish to have you delayed an hour 
by this." The same anxiety was shown in the royal let- 
ters to Fonseca. Referring to the chartering of additional 
ships for the horses, Fonseca is instructed to avoid it if 
possible, "because if this were done the expense would 
increase and the money give out; for, as you know, all 
that was planned for this fleet has not turned out as was 
expected." A fortnight later they wrote to the same offi- 
cial to act as he thought best in certain matters, " so long 
as the outlay of money is not augmented, lest that should 
be wanting." The Admiral was to have the extra ships he 
had asked for, after all, "provided they do not add to the 
cost." It is apparent that there was a constant difference 
of opinion between Columbus and the treasury officials as 
to what were needful expenditures, for in the middle of 



FOUNDING THE GREAT MONOPOLY. 37 

August he again came in conflict with Juan de Soria 
upon this subject. That officer, notwithstanding the royal 
rebuke of two weeks before, refused to approve certain 
payments contracted by the Admiral, and the latter ap- 
pealed to the King and Queen. The answer came in no 
uncertain tones. " You already know," the monarchs wrote 
to Fonseca, " that we charged you when you were here that 
the Admiral of the Indies should receive every satisfaction, 
both in the business itself and in the manner of conduct- 
ing it; and, since the fleet is going under his command, it 
is right that everything should be done to his liking, with- 
out any one raising questions or disputes; therefore do you 
look closely to this for our service and do all you can to 
please him. Tell Juan de Soria for us that we command 
him to act in harmony with the Admiral and offer him 
no contradiction, and if he should make any objection to 
approving that which you and the Admiral sign, let the 
money be paid without Soria' s signature, for we want the 
Admiral's wishes to be followed in all things." To Soria 
himself they were even more peremptory. He had pre- 
sented his side of the case to the King and Queen, but had 
met with scant sympathy. "We have your letter," they 
answered, " and have suffered much vexation from what we 
learned you did and are doing in the transactions with the 
Admiral of the Indies, because you know very well you 
should always act with him; and, since this affair is 
entrusted chiefly to him and Don Juan de Fonseca, you 
are not to oppose what they do, and thus we command 
you." Having harangued him for his obstinacy, his royal 
master and mistress, with truly kinglike inconsistency, 
proceeded to enjoin him to do the very thing for which 
they had been chiding him. " Do as the Admiral desires," 
they concluded, " provided that the cost is not increased 
so that the money runs short." But the intervention of 
Ferdinand and Isabella did not put a stop to the sorry 
wrangle, the consequences of which were bitterly felt by 
Columbus in after years. There is no evidence that it 
had other ground than an honest divergence of judgment 
between two officers, each tenacious of the prerogatives of 



38 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

his charge. The Admiral proposed that his fleet should be 
so constituted and equipped that it should be equal to any 
emergency on either side of the Ocean Sea; the Comp- 
troller strove to husband every possible ducat, keenly 
aware of the emptiness of the royal coffers. Columbus 
invoked the authority of the King and Queen; Soria re- 
torted by refusing his sanction to the engagement of the 
Admiral's personal attendants. Despite the repeated in- 
timation of the royal displeasure, Fonseca sided with 
Soria; and thus began the feud that led, not indirectly, to 
a large part of the ignominy and distress visited in later 
years upon the Viceroy of the Indies. 

The state of the finances was not the only source of anxi- 
ety to Ferdinand and Isabella. When the Admiral's squad- 
ron failed to get away in July, he had fixed the 15th of 
August as the probable date of sailing. As this date 
approached, he was compelled to advise his sovereigns that 
the fleet was not even yet ready for sea. The tidings were 
most unwelcome to the King and Queen, but they showed 
no sign of impatience in their intercourse with him. "As 
to your departure," they wrote on August i8th, 'Sve would 
that it had not been delayed, but that you had sailed on the 
15th of this month, as you wrote us you should do. Since 
this was not practicable, we are satisfied that it did not 
happen through any want of diligence on your part. . . . 
Give much haste to your departure, for a single day of delay 
now means more than twenty days heretofore, as the winter 
is near." The advent of the stormy season usually put an 
end to navigation along the Atlantic coasts of Europe until 
the more favorable spring weather opened, and no one yet 
knew what the winter might mean out yonder on the West- 
ern Ocean. The solicitude on this score was, no doubt, 
genuine; but it was secondary to the ever-present disquiet 
concerning the plans of Portugal. News had again reached 
Columbus at Seville, that King John had despatched a single 
caravel from Madeira into the West, In communicating 
this report to Ferdinand and Isabella the Admiral had pro- 
posed sending after the Portuguese some of his own vessels 
which were already equipped and waiting at Cadiz. The 



FOUNDING THE GREAT MONOPOLY. 39 

sovereigns acquiesced in tlie suggestion, adding only a warn- 
ing that the Spanish ships must not carry the pursuit into 
the African waters claimed by Portugal. They added a 
renewed assurance which was meant to relieve the mind of 
Columbus from all apprehension on account of the squadron 
which King John was said to be preparing to send in the 
wake of the Admiral's fleet : *' If the King of Portugal should 
prepare a fleet to send out to where you are going, have no 
care about it; for all will be provided for, with God's help. 
Do not delay on this score, but start soon." So great was 
their desire to conceal the whereabouts of the Indies, that 
they concluded their letter with a caution against the Ad- 
miral laying his outward course too near the European 
shores on leaving Cadiz. "It seems to us best that you 
should not approach Cape St. Vincent," they wrote; " rather 
draw away from that coast, even if you have to make a 
detour, so that you may not go near Portugal, lest they know 
the course you take." To Fonseca they wrote in the same 
strain, earnestly directing him to keep informed of the prep- 
arations making by the Portuguese and to be himself pre- 
pared for action, "so that if we have to despatch another 
fleet after the Admiral, it may sail promptly." 

The King of Portugal meantime had thought it expedient 
to send two ambassadors to the Spanish Court to disclaim 
all intentions of a hostile nature and allay the suspicions 
which were so vehemently aroused in the minds of Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella. The Spanish monarchs seem to have 
put little faith in these protestations. They rested their 
claims to a monopoly of transoceanic exploration and navi- 
gation upon the recent Papal Bull. East of the line therein 
•laid down — that is, along the coasts of Africa and, if so 
King John chose, around the lately explored Cape of Good 
Hope, — the Portuguese might sail at will, until they found 
a way to the coveted "Spiceries." But west of that line, 
wherever the restless Ocean Sea led them, the Spaniards 
alone had the right to go. For the Portuguese to attempt 
to follow them on that waste of waters was, thanks to Pope 
Alexander of Borgia, tantamount to an invasion of Castilian 
territory, and would so be received. Little wonder, consid- 



40 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ering the vague ideas of even the wisest as to the relative 
positions of the Cape, Japan, and Cuba, that the Portuguese 
emissaries should confess themselves unable to solve the 
knotty problem of the boundaries to the "Indies," and 
return to Lisbon for further instructions. 

In this emergency Ferdinand and Isabella threw them- 
selves on the geographical skill of their Admiral, and re- 
ferred their whole case to him for decision, fairly entreating 
him, meanwhile, to forestall Portugal by getting under way 
at the earliest moment possible and thus solve the dispute 
by an accomplished act. " There has been much discussion 
with the Portuguese ambassadors," they wrote to Columbus 
on September 5th, "about this affair, and we have no faith 
that it will be adjusted, because they are not instructed as 
to what belongs to us. We have decided to inform you of 
the fact, so that you may know that no agreement has been 
reached up to the present, and we strictly charge you that 
forour sakesyoudo not delay your sailing for a single hour." 
The Portuguese messengers had declared that the caravel 
reported by Columbus had slipped away from Madeira 
without the permission of King John, and that the latter, as 
soon as the news reached Lisbon, had straightway sent three 
others to seek and bring it back. "It may be, however," 
the King and Queen wrote to the Admiral, "that this was 
done with other designs, and that those who went in the 
caravels, whether the single one or the three others, are 
anxious to spy out something of which belongs to us; there- 
fore we command you that you look diligently to this and 
provide for it in such manner that neither these nor any 
other caravels which may set out shall discover or reach 
any part which belongs to us within the boundaries which 
you wot of. Although we hope that we shall reach a con- 
clusion with the King of Portugal, it is right, and we so 
desire, that those who ventured into the parts which are 
ours should be very sufficiently chastised, and that both 
their persons and their ships be seized." 

There is in all this correspondence between Ferdinand 
and his Admiral — for, although they were signed by both 
King and Queen, every line proved the letters to have been 



FOUNDING THE GREAT MONOPOLY. 41 

the work of the monarch who later showed himself to be the 
ablest master of statecraft of his times — an appearance of 
naivete and disingenuousness which, when we consider the 
circumstances, approaches the grotesque. It is the work 
of a consummate dissimulator showing his whole hand to 
a servant in whose abilities and devotion he has implicit 
trust, and yet whom he is bent upon cajoling in turn to 
compass his own royal ends. For, while Ferdinand was 
inciting Columbus to take this whole vexed question out of 
the domain of politics by hastening off with his armada and 
reaching the Indies while the negotiations were pending, 
Ferdinand himself was trying to find out exactly where 
these much-talked-of Indies were ! What was the object of 
Columbus in hiding, first from his pilots and captains and 
afterwards from the King and Queen, the exact record of his 
observations while on his first voyage and, consequently, the 
precise course to be steered to reach Hispaniola and Cuba, 
we can only conjecture. Presumably he did not wish to 
disclose these details until the Spanish Crown had fulfilled 
its obligations to him and he was fairly settled in the enjoy- 
ment of his promised dignities. Be this as it may, although 
he had left with the Queen the Journal of his voyage and 
shown her Majesty and Ferdinand the chart which he had 
made of his discoveries, neither the one nor the other 
indicated in what part of the broad Western Ocean the 
latter were situated. Therefore, in informing the Admiral 
of the status of the negotiations with Portugal, the King 
wrote : — 

" In the discussion which has been held with them [the Por- 
tuguese], some contend that between the point which they call 
Good Hope (which is on the route they now follow to reach 
Guinea and the Gold Coast) and the boundary you said should 
be inserted in the Pope's Bull, there are probably islands and 
even a continent, and that these from their vicinity to the sun 
must be very valuable, and richer than all the others [discov- 
ered] . Since we are sure you know more about this than any 
one else, we desire you to send us your opinion about it at once, 
so that, if you agree with those here and think it desirable, the 
Bull may be corrected. . . . Send us also the decrees in which 



42 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

lie the islands and continent which you found, so that we may 
better understand your book. Also send us the chart in much 
detail, with all the names written down ; and if you think we 
should not show it, write us to that effect." 

To Fonseca their Majesties wrote a letter of much the 
came tenor, referring to Columbus the decision as to what 
course should be followed, now that no agreement had been 
reached in the dispute as to metes and bounds. "The more 
we discuss this affair," they wrote the Archdeacon, "the 
more do we recognize how great a service he [the Admiral] 
has done us, and that concerning it he knows more than all 
other men ; and so everything should be referred to him." 

Queen Isabella alone, whose regard for Columbus and 
whose faith in him are open to no suspicion of insincerity, 
does not seem to have been drawn into the tangled web of 
intrigue. On the 5th of September, in anticipation of his 
immediate sailing, she wrote him, returning the Journal of 
his first voyage which he had left with her to be copied. 
The letter was addressed, with a pride which is almost 
pathetic when we recall the bitter loss her death caused 
Columbus, to " Don Christopher Columbus, My Admiral of 
the Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Governor of the Islands newly 
found in the Indies." After apologizing for keeping the 
book so long, on account of the necessity of having it copied 
in secret by trustworthy hands, to prevent any knowledge 
of its contents being betrayed to the Portuguese, the Queen 
says : — 

" Of a surety, from all that has been seen and said concerning 
this undertaking, each day it is discovered to be much vaster and 
of great scope and import, and that you have greatly ser\'ed us 
therein ; and we hold you in our special care. Thus we trust 
in God that you shall receive from us much more honor and 
benefit and aggrandizement than that which is already stipulated, 
and which shall be discharged and fulfilled with all scrupulous- 
ness, as is right and as your achievements and merits deserve. 
If the saiUng-chart which you were to make is finished, send it 
to me at once, and for my sake make great haste in your depart- 
ing, so that may be effected at once, since you see how much the 
success of the enterprise demands it." 



FOUNDING THE GREAT MONOPOLY. 



43 



The letter closes with a caution to be constantly on his 
guard against the King of Portugal, " so that in no event 
may you be deceived." 

By this time the preparations for the voyage were all but 
completed. Changing conditions had called for corre- 
sponding modifications in the arrangements, particularly 
with regard to the offensive portion of the fleet. The for- 
midable Biscayan squadron had been detached at the last 
moment from the Admiral's orders, apparently from motives 
of economy, and restored to the duty of transporting King 
Boabdil and his retinue to Tangiers. The King and Queen 
trusted to Fonseca, as we have said, to keep a close watch 
upon Portugal and have other vessels in readiness to oppose 
her, should that power attempt to send a fleet after Colum- 
bus ; hence the acquisition of the heavy armament proposed 
by the latter was deferred until the emergency should arise. 
Moreover, Captain liiigo de Artieta had shown himself to 
be more of a freebooter than the Admiral cared, perhaps, 
to be burdened with. In coming around from the Biscayan 
coast to Cadiz, the doughty Captain had encountered a 
squadron of Portuguese caravels bound from Lisbon to 
Guinea, and had then and there gone in chase and, appar- 
ently, captured the entire flotilla. For this excess of zeal 
he was roundly rebuked by the Admiral, who insisted that 
such action was sure to be disavowed by Ferdinand and 
Isabella, as indeed was the case ; for they wrote a sharp 
letter to their over-zealous officer, ordering him to restore 
the vessels at once to Portugal and sending him with his 
fleet to the seaport of Granada to carry the Moors to Africa, 
instead of sailing to the Golden Indies with Columbus. 
The change in orders can hardly have been agreeable to the 
adventurous Basque, but he had a glimmer of hope left in 
the instructions given him to return as soon as practicable 
from Morocco, so that if the Portuguese should go in pur- 
suit of Columbus the Biscayan fleet could follow after and 
settle scores with their rivals on the high seas. 

The prospect of sending out this second detachment in 
reinforcement of the Admiral led to the postponement until 
its sailing of many shipments at first designed for the pio- 



44 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

neer fleet, — a measure which still further husbanded both 
money and time at a juncture when both were of imminent 
importance. Columbus was directed to " leave his opinion 
as to the fleet which will have to be prepared, if it should 
be needful to send one out, and the persons who should go 
in it, and settle upon some of the ships he thought should 
go " ; and he was accordingly enabled to dispense with much 
he would otherwise have taken at this time. With these 
provisions made for future supplies and aid, he could set 
sail in perfect confidence. 

By the middle of September all the vessels were in readi- 
ness to sail, the stores and munitions on board, and the 
crews awaiting their orders. Prior to embarking the twelve 
hundred men who were to make the voyage, Columbus held 
a review of them, with their arms and equipments, at Seville. 
The result was disquieting. It had been consistently his 
aim to have his whole force, military as well as civil, 
selected with a view to the welfare of the colonies to be 
founded and the rapid success of his other operations. He 
had proposed that, as to the more humble class of followers, 
the men should be industrious and hardy, and, as to the 
better sort, loyal and capable of endurance under the trials 
he knew to be inevitable. What he could do to maintain 
such a standard had been done; but the influences of the 
Court were strong and his opportunities for revision few, so 
that little by little the lists were filled with soldiers of for- 
tune, ambitious adventurers, and the more worthless de- 
pendants of king and grandees, until the motley throng 
assembled at Seville wore rather the aspect of a freebooting 
foray than of a sober colonizing expedition. This was not 
what their commander had planned and hoped for, but he 
had no remedy at that late hour. The men as they stood 
had passed the royal inspectors and were enrolled on the 
comptroller's books. The sentiments of the Admiral, and 
the course he pursued, before finally sending his ill-assorted 
company on the vessels assigned to them, are best learned 
from a report he made, upon a later occasion, to the King 
and Queen: — 



FOUNDING THE GREAT MONOPOLY. 45 

"When I came out here" [to Hispaniola], he wrote, '-I 
brought with me many people for the subjection of these 
lands, all of whom I accepted by reason of the importunities 
exercised, who declared that they would serve faithfully in the 
cause, and better than any others. But the contrary was the 
case, as you have seen ; for they did not join except in the 
belief that the gold which it was said they should lind, and 
the spices, were to be gathered with a shovel ; that the drugs 
lay ready in bundles, and everything was close to the edge of 
the sea, so that nothing remained to be done but throw it into 
the ships. So blinded were they by avarice ; nor did they 
consider that, although there were gold, it would be in mines, 
and so with the other metals, and the spices would be on the 
trees ; so that it would be necessary to dig out the gold and 
gather and dry the spices. All this I told them in Seville ; for 
there were so many who wished to come, and I was so well 
aware of their motive, that I caused this to be explained to 
them, as well as all the hardships which those who go to peo- 
ple new and distant lands are wont to suffer. To this they 
all replied that they came with this expectation and to win 
glory by so doing ; but it all turned out to be the contrary." 

What the consequences were we shall see in due time. 
Meantime every soul of the number, from the royal in- 
spector to the youngest cabin-boy, was sworn on mass- 
book and crucifix to be a loyal subject of the King and 
Queen and serve faithfully their Admiral and Viceroy, upon 
pain of death in this world and an indefinite sojourn in 
Purgatory in the next. This done, they were ordered to 
seek their ships. Now began, however, one of those suc- 
cessful speculations which proves the whole world akin. 
Many of the men who had made a brave show of armor, 
arquebuse, and cross-bow at the Admiral's review hurriedly 
sold their equipments to the nearest dealer and went on 
board as unarmed as the ship's scullion. Others sold out- 
right their place on the roll to those who were anxious to 
go but had failed of appointment. The twenty horses whose 
transportation had caused Columbus so much concern, and 
which had received his approval, were spirited out of the 
way and as many worthless hacks were smuggled into the 
ships in their stead. Other like scurvy tricks were played 
in the excitement of these last days, until the effectiveness 



46 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

of the enlisted force was seriously impaired and its number 
swelled by the surreptitious entrance of two or three hun- 
dred stowaways, who managed to hide themselves aboard 
the several crafts. It is doubtful whether any of this disorder 
would have been possible had the Admiral been able to 
continue his personal oversight of the embarkation, but he 
had been seized with a severe attack of the gouty affection 
with which he suffered and was confined to his bed. Later 
on, when he became aware of the rascalities perpetrated, 
he did not hesitate to lay them at the door of Juan de Soria, 
the royal comptroller, charging that official with having 
turned a pretty penny thereby, in addition ta the embar- 
rassment sure to result to his enemy, the Admiral, from the 
disorganization introduced into his carefully laid plans. 
The King and Queen thought the matter serious enough to 
warrant an investigation, and there the affair rested, after 
the manner of investigations. Such untoward things have 
since happened, even in the new world which Columbus 
was setting forth to explore. 

The force embarked; the squadron was directed to ren- 
dezvous at Cadiz, and there await the coming of the 
Admiral. It was an evil chance that he was stricken with 
illness just then, but it was not extraordinary. The exces- 
sive strain, mental as well as physical, under which he 
labored so long without remission had broken a constitu- 
tion which, if we may judge from occasional references in 
his writings, was already enfeebled by a life of hardship. 
If the six months just closing had been a season of 
triumph, they had also imposed a fresh burden of anxiety 
and toil upon one who was entitled, if ever man was, to 
some respite, however brief. That Columbus had taken 
none, but, from the hour of his return from his first voyage 
to that of departing upon his second, had been content to 
immerse himself in the myriad details of such an under- 
taking as that he was now embarking upon, should weigh 
somewhat against the protestations of those who affect to 
see in him only an audacious speculator or greedy adven- 
turer. Until these later days men have not grudged a 
generous applause and lasting fame to those who pursue 



FOUNDING THE GREAT MONOPOLY. 47 

great aims with patient diligence, who shun no labor to 
compass worthy ends, who postpone the enjoyment of ease, 
profit, and glory itself, to achieve a great ideal. Now, for- 
sooth, such appreciation is unseemly — worthy only of an 
"amiable hero-worship." That Historical Criticism which 
is only too often neither historical as to facts nor critical 
in its treatment of them prefers to hunt out and magnify 
the weaknesses of a great character rather than to accept and 
respect its manly side. To this school the energy, fore- 
sight, and persistence shown by Columbus at this season 
are no more than the consuming greed of an inflated vanity 
hastening to enter upon its new office and to derive there- 
from the promised advantages of wealth and rank. But 
those who are contented to regard him as only a "mere 
mortal man," with his quantum of human defects hidden 
by his sufficit of human greatness, will not fail to conceive 
a juster estimate of his personality. For it is most certain 
that in all these months of stress and care Columbus had 
proved himself to be a man of infinite resource, of un- 
limited capacity for labor of many kinds, and of unfalter- 
ing persistence. He had planned with Ferdinand and 
Isabella a far-reaching scheme of exploration, occupation, 
and development extending over a quarter of the globe's 
superficies; he had attended personally to the selection of 
the ships and, so far as he was permitted, of the men des- 
tined to carry out these plans; had drawn up the sched- 
ules for the equipment, armament, and provisioning of his 
fleet, and of the colonies to be established and maintained 
until they should be self-supporting; had kept a keen 
watch on Portugal's underhand manoeuvres and acted 
promptly to thwart them ; had proposed to his sovereigns 
first the scheme of the Papal Bull and afterwards a modifi- 
cation of it which, if granted, would vastly enhance their 
authority in the undiscovered parts of ocean; and, not 
least, had upheld his dignity and prerogatives in the face 
of the influential and numerous cabal which was bent on 
breaking the pride or foiling the success of the man they 
could only recognize as a lucky parvenu. It may be urged 
that in all this he had the countenance of the King and 



48 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Queen at a time when that was as much to ambitious men 
as are the sun's rays to struggling vegetation; but no small 
skill was required to win and hold this. To the courtly and 
liberal chronicler of the Spanish monarchs, Peter Martyr, 
the Admiral was merely "a certain Genoese, one Christo- 
pher Columbus," even after Ferdinand and Isabella had 
bestowed their unstinted approbation upon him and hailed 
him as a grandee of Spain. What the historian wrote 
without malice, from a mere habit which connected great- 
ness instinctively with birth and rank, was covertly repeated 
and magnified by scores of intiuential dependants upon the 
royal favor, whose envy blinded them to everything but a 
comparison between the new Admiral's eminence and their 
own relative insignificance. To command the continued 
confidence of Ferdinand and Isabella, in the face of so 
much malign sentiment and suggestion, of itself betokens 
the skilled and ready man of affairs. 

Beyond a doubt, the chief danger of a disagreement at 
this period between Columbus and his sovereigns lay in 
the excessive expenditure in which the expedition involved 
them. It was originally supposed that the outlay would 
not greatly pass six million of maravedies. It finally 
amounted to nearly four times as much, and so vastly ex- 
ceeded the estimates as to involve the Crown in serious 
embarrassment, if we may judge from the monotonous 
plaints. This was used by Soria and his following to prej- 
udice the King especially, against Columbus. That the 
attempt wholly failed is probably due less to any innate 
sentiment of magnanimity on the part of the parsimonious 
Ferdinand than to the hopes which he built of receiving 
immediate and considerable returns of gold and precious 
drugs from the garrison of forty-two men which the Admi- 
ral had left at Navidad with such stringent orders to collect 
the greatest possible amount of treasure before his return. 
We find this sanguine expectation repeatedly recorded in 
the letters of Ferdinand and Isabella to Columbus prior to 
the latter' s departure from Cadiz. One of the first ap- 
pointments made by their Majesties, in the beginning of 
May, was that of Gomez de Telles, an officer of their 



FOUNDING THE GREAT MONOPOLY. 



49 



household, to be receiver for them "of all which should 
be out there [in Hispaniola] belonging in any wise to us." 
So confident were they on this score that, to mitigate the 
hardship of the office, they promised Telles that, if it 
should inconvenience him to remain in the Indies more 
than "a few days," he might return with the first ships 
which Columbus was to send back. Again, in giving 
Columbus the cumulative rank of Captain-General of this 
expedition, their Majesties named Antonio de Torres, an 
officer high in their favor, as second in command, with the 
especial duty of taking charge of the vessels of the fleet 
which were to bring to Spain the treasures accumulated by 
the outpost at Navidad. Bernal Diaz de Pisa, the comp- 
troller, was directed to keep as exact an account of "all 
the gold, spices, and other things " which were shipped 
from the Indies, as he did of all that was sent there from 
Spain. In writing to Columbus before his departure, 
their Majesties again refer to this matter, saying that they 
think it best that he send back to Spain all the ships he 
does not need to retain at Navidad laden "with what may 
be in store there." The Admiral himself partook of this 
expectation, for later on he asked to be instructed as to 
whom to deliver the gold of Navidad; to which their 
Majesties replied, " It is not needful that we name any one 
from here, so long as you send it by some one who you 
know will bring it with care and safely deliver it to our 
representative." That the returning vessels were to bring 
a large and valuable cargo back to Seville in a few months, 
which should go far towards reimbursing the Crown for the 
heavy outlay now being made, was considered to be beyond 
dispute, and no doubt influenced both their Majesties and 
the Admiral in keeping so close a watch on the movements 
of Portugal. 



III. 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. 



SEVENTEEN vessels rode at anchor in the harbor of 
Cadiz, awaiting the orders of the Admiral of the Ocean 
Sea, Three of these were ships, properly speaking, — car- 
acks of 200 or 300 tons burthen, — the "Gallega," a Bis- 
cayan craft, as her name indicates, the "Maria Galante," on 
which the Admiral sailed, and a third whose name is not 
given. The remaining fourteen were better adapted to pur- 
poses of exploration, being caravels of light draft and small 
tonnage, varying from thirty or forty to seventy or eighty 
tons. Among the latter was one which bore the proud dis- 
tinction of having already made the hazardous passage, — 
one whose clumsy bows had parted the quiet waters of many 
a land-locked harbor in the mysterious Indies, and whose 
rude timbers had borne the shock of many a gale in seas 
whose very existence had been denied for a thousand years. 
We find no particular mention of the sturdy little world- 
finder in the scanty chronicles of the day : if any of the thou- 
sands who watched the flotilla as it lay off the Cadiz mole 
pointed her out as worthy of remark, it was doubtless some 
weather-beaten seaman who had made the previous voyage 
with the Sefior Colon and spoke with pride of the "Nina" 
as a mute witness to the truth of the wonders he related. 
But, all unheralded as she was, the staunch caravel was des- 
tined to acquire fresh fame upon this new cruise and to 
write her name again on History's page before she joined 
the ships of Jason and Ulysses, of Hanno and Necho, in 
the shadowy realms where drift //; saeciila saecidoj-um the 
50 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. 51 

phantom craft which have taught mankind that the horizon 
is but the To-morrow of the physical world. 

On Tuesday, the 24th of September, all was ready aboard 
the fleet, and the Admiral issued his orders to weigh anchor 
on the following morning. It is not likely that there was 
much rest on the crowded ships. The spirit of ambition 
and adventure was too rife in that tumultuous throng to 
allow the eve of their departure for the Golden Indies to be 
passed in inglorious peace. Their plans, their hopes, their 
deeds, their destinies, had to be vaunted, debated, and 
challenged in turn on such an occasion, or the followers of 
the Admiral would have been no true children of sunny 
Spain. On shore, too, the vigil of excitement was kept, for 
the good people of Cadiz took both interest and pride in the 
sailing of the expedition. Its success meant for their city, 
in the near future, busy wharves and teeming warehouses; 
cargoes of spices, of silks, of slaves, perchance of gold; 
profits for their merchants and brilliant careers for their 
lads. Thus, as the night grew old and the land breeze 
drew down from the heights, it bore across the bay towards 
the ships the shouts and cries of friends on shore, to mingle 
with the louder uproar of the multitude afloat. When day 
dawned on Wednesday, the 25th, both the decks and the 
beaches were thronged with expectant crowds. The creak- 
ing of tackle and shouts of command bore witness to the 
immediate sailing of the fleet, and the slowly hoisting sails 
waved a ghostly adios through the gray morning light to the 
assemblage which lined the water-front. The Admiral's 
flagship was the first to get under weigh, leading the fleet 
out past the Diamond Bank and so to the open sea. As 
the sails filled and the vessels gathered way, the cheers from 
ship and shore mingled with the blare of trumpet and roll 
of drum, until the whole scene took on the aspect of a joyous 
pageant. Before the sun rose, the bows of the little squad- 
ron were breasting the Atlantic billows and the first great 
emigration to the New World was fairly begun. 

One picturesque incident we owe to the letters of an 
eye-witness who was watching the stirring scene. Among 
the vessels at anchor in the harbor was a Venetian fleet. 



52 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

which had entered the port a few days before. Now, as 
the Spanish squadron swept out into the open, the hardy 
sea-dogs of the Adriatic lined their bulwarks and shouted 
lustily their wishes for a fair passage and a speedy return, 
after the generous fashion of sailor-men. If, as he stood 
on the poop of his flagship, the pulse of Columbus quick- 
ened while he listened to these cheers, his pride was justi- 
fiable; for Venice was the ancient rival of Spain in the 
navigation of the European seas, and her sailors had been 
the Admiral's own foes on many an occasion in the long- 
past days when he sailed under the orders of his native 
Genoa. For centuries the Queen of the Adriatic had held 
the keys of the only gates to the Orient, through the world- 
old road of Syria and Egypt; but the caravels now exchang- 
ing vivas with her galleys in the Andalusian harbor were 
bound for the ports of Cipango and Cathay by a route which 
was still a mystery to all the world save their Majesties of 
Spain and their Admiral, but which the latter did not doubt 
was destined to wrest from Venice her long-held commer- 
cial supremacy. Unconscious as they were of any such 
sequel, the shouts with which the men of St. Mark hailed 
the new Viceroy of the Indies, as the "Maria Galante " 
glided by, were the Moritiiri Salutamiis of the passing traffic 
of the marble city in the lagoons. 

In compliance with his instructions Columbus steered 
a southwest course as soon as he was off soundings and 
headed direct for the Canaries, thus avoiding all chance of 
an approach to the coasts of Portugal. The weather was 
fair, the breeze favorable, and ere long even the keenest 
eye could see nothing in the North but the same tumbling 
sea which stretched away into the haunted West. 

"The fleet which their Catholic Majesties, our Sovereigns, 
have sent from Spain to the Indies and the government of their 
Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Christopher Columbus, by the divine 
permission set sail from Cadiz the 25th day of September in 
the year 1493, with weather and wind favorable for our course. 
This weather lasted two days, during which we made about fifty 
leagues ; then it changed for other two days, during which we 
made little or nothing. After this it pleased God that the good 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. 53 

weather should return, so that in two days more we arrived at 
the Great Canary, wliere we made a port." 

So opens the journal or report which Dr. Chanca, surgeon 
of the fleet, wrote for the information of the Municipal 
Council of Seville, his native city. Its prosaic baldness is 
strikingly indicative of the widely diverse sentiment with 
which the sailing of the first andfsecond expeditions of 
Columbus were regarded, and no homily could be more 
eloquent of the instability of human emotions. It was only 
thirteen months since the three little vessels had left Palos 
on their desperate undertaking ; only six since the " Nifia " 
had returned with her amazing evidences of prodigious 
discovery and her tidings were hailed by the learned of all 
Europe as the fulfilment of ancient prophecy; only four 
since, as the result of that first voyage, the burly profligate 
who arrogated to himself the authority of Omnipotence had 
bestowed the half of the world upon the monarchs who had 
advanced a few thousand dollars to his " beloved son Chris- 
topher Columbus " for the mighty venture. And yet, upon 
a repetition of that voyage, we find one of the few men of 
education engaged therein jotting down in colorless sen- 
tences his notes about the weather, as though a journey to 
the Indies were no longer an occasion for special comment. 
The novelty of the Admiral's famous exploit had worn off; 
the finding of the New World was already an old story. 

To this same indifference we owe the poverty of detail 
concerning the companions of Columbus on this expedi- 
tion. How many of his comrades of the Discovery were 
now returning with him we cannot determine. Some of 
them certainly were, but their number at best was insignifi- 
cant in comparison with that of the new men who packed 
the vessels far beyond their normal capacity. When a 
muster was made, after leaving Spain, it was found that 
fifteen hundred souls were crowded into the quarters origi- 
nally destined for one thousand. Here was more trouble 
assured for the near future; for the provisions which were 
ample for the smaller number would be scanty for half as 
many more. A month's voyage, in an open caravel under 



54 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

a tropical sun, which would be barely endurable with the 
larger allowance of room, would be insupportable when 
this was reduced by one-half; and the intruders, as "no 
man's men," not being in the royal pay-rolls, would have a 
constant pretext for complaint and mischief-making. Pre- 
sumably, moreover, they were in large part those who had 
already been rejected when the applicants were examined 
at Seville, and hence •ould bear no good will towards the 
commander or his lieutenants. Fortunately for the Admiral, 
there was also a contingent of men of substance and reputa- 
tion who might be depended upon to support his authoritv, 
— at least until this should conflict with their own pride or 
interests. Too many of them, indeed, held their appoint- 
ments direct from the Crown and considered themselves 
entitled, in case of dispute, to appeal from the Admiral to 
their Majesties; but this source of weakness did not develop 
at the outset. Rather did Columbus have cause to congrat- 
ulate himself as he thought of the men who had been chosen 
to accompany him, — officers who had won distinction in the 
royal armies; officials of trust and confidence in Court and 
Council; dignitaries of the great military orders; church- 
men of noted sanctity and ardor. Surely, he might have 
argued, so goodly a company could be trusted to sustain 
him in any contingency which should arise; if not from 
any sentiment of personal loyalty, at least from the alle- 
giance they owed the Crown and its interests. Only on 
this hypothesis can we account for the complacency with 
which he bade farewell to Spain and started on an absence 
which must necessarily be a long one, and during which, 
but for these men of the better sort, he must stand abso- 
lutely alone amid surroundings and in circumstances which 
would appal the most reckless adventurer, were he to think 
of facing them unsupported. 

How small a proportion of his followers proved worthy 
of their leader's confidence the sequel will show; but there 
were many in the number, disloyal as well as loyal, who 
achieved their share of fame in the opening decades of our 
continent's history. Among them were Ponce de Leon, of 
nielancholy Floridian fame; Diego de Alvarado, who fought 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. 55 

SO masterfully with Pizarro ; Francisco de Garay, who ruffled 
it so bravely against Cortez; and many another who helped 
storm Mexico and threw the dice for the spoils of Cuzco. 
On the Admiral's flagship was his younger brother, Diego, 
whom Columbus had summoned from Genoa to share his 
fortunes when he found himself a famous man six months 
before. "A virtuous person, very sensible, peaceable of 
disposition, and rather straightforward and well-meaning 
than reserved or designing. He was always soberly dressed, 
almost like a priest, and I believe he thought to be a 
bishop, and that the Admiral sought to make him one, or at 
least to obtain for him some preferment in the Church." 
This is the opinion of a writer who knew all the brothers 
Colombo, or Columbus, — Fray Bartolom6 de las Casas, 
himself afterwards bishop of Chiapas in Yucatan but better 
known by his nobler title of Protector of the Indians. His 
father, Pedro de las Casas, was with Columbus on this second 
voyage, but not the son, as is most usually asserted. A 
vivid contrast to Diego Columbus, who proved himself no 
faint heart despite his clerical tastes, was Alonso de Hojeda, 
a youth of twenty-one years, who had already attracted the 
attention of his sovereigns by his deeds of prowess and 
now commanded one of the caravels. Attached to the 
retinue of that Duke of Medina Cell whose powerful pat- 
ronage Columbus had enjoyed when he first came to Spain 
in 1484 and by whom his project of discovery was first pre- 
sented to the Queen, Hojeda had the best of influences in 
his favor when he applied to the Admiral for a place in 
his second expedition. We have the testimony of his com- 
mander that the sinewy young Andalusian soldier was "a 
very intelligent lad and possessed of a daring spirit," on 
which account Columbus entrusted him with more than one 
important mission. His fame rests less on these, however, 
than on his exploits when prosecuting voyages of his own 
along the coasts of Terra Firma; for Hojeda was the proto- 
type of all the long line of throat-cutting Spanish butchers 
who, under the thin disguise of an alleged concern for their 
spiritual welfare, carried fire and sword among the peace- 
able inhabitants of the western world. Others there were 



56 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

in the motley throng on the caravels who achieved their 
measure of a like notoriety, but whatever distinction attaches 
to priority in evil belongs here to Hojeda, and none contrib- 
uted more generously than he to the black record of cruelty, 
extortion and rapine which weighed so heavily against the 
brilliant achievements in the New World of which Castile 
was so justly proud. Still one more figure may be detached 
from the throng, — that of Juan de la Cosa, the seaman who, 
even in the days of Magellan, Cabot, and Cabral, came to 
be known as "the ablest pilot of his times." No one, not 
excepting Columbus, crossed the Atlantic oftener or ex- 
plored more persistently the unknown coasts of the unnamed 
continent. Unfortunately, later on he transferred his alle- 
giance from the Admiral to Hojeda, and met his death, like 
the brave Spaniard he was, fighting single-handed against a 
horde of savages on one of the forays led by his hot-headed 
associate. To him we owe the oldest map of the western 
world which has come down to us, and to him Americus 
Vespucci was in later years still more indebted for much of 
the knowledge of which he made such skilful use. 

Vespucci himself was not engaged in this voyage. There 
is no evidence to show (for his own assertions as to dates 
go for nothing) that he ever crossed the Western Ocean 
before 1499.^ But he had a left-handed connection with 
the expedition, for he was factor, or manager, or whatever 
it was, for Juanoto Berardi, the contractor who supplied in 
large part the outfit for the fleet. No one at this late date 

1 Professor Fiske, in his masterly " Discovery of America," has laid 
the shade of Vespucci under lasting obligations by his ingenious and 
powerful argument in support of Vespucci's date, 1497, for the dis- 
covery of Yucatan, Mexico, and Florida by Vicente Yaiiez Pinzon and 
Solis, accompanied by the Florentine in a subordinate capacity. At 
the same time, Vespucci himself asserts that the natives of La7-iab — 
which Professor Fiske identifies with the Mexican coast — called them- 
selves Cariabi., which is obviously the same as Caribs and entirely in- 
consistent with the Yucatan-Mexico theory; and both Las Casas and 
Peter Martyr explicitly declare that Pinzon and Solis made their 
voyage after the return of Columbus from his last expedition in 1504. 
Herrera, whom Professor Fiske quotes in support of his argument, 
merely copied from Las Casas and omitted the latter's allusion to 
Columbus. 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. 57 

believes that the imaginative Florentine really entered into 
a deep-laid scheme to saddle his entirely commonplace 
name upon the continent he was so far from discovering. 
Perhaps the worst that can be charged to him is that he 
husbanded his eloquence when a very few words of honest 
disavowal would have saved him from being branded as a 
fraud for four hundred years, and ourselves from the neces- 
sity of explaining that, although we call ourselves "Ameri- 
cans," we really know better. At all events, his first 
connection with the continent discovered by Columbus 
consisted in the furnishing to this fleet of a great quantity 
of supplies, — provisions and ship-stores of all kinds. It 
may have been only an unhappy coincidence that most of 
the casks the contractors supplied leaked so that water 
became scarce and a year's store of wine ran into the 
bilges of the caravels within the month, and that the bis- 
cuit and salt meat could not stand the voyage. The Admi- 
ral, in reporting the facts, does not intimate that it was 
Vespucci's fault, for to the day of his death he was a loyal 
friend to the glib Florentine; but these untoward events 
did happen, and Vespucci was the responsible agent for 
the fitting-out of the ships : so that it should appear that 
he was no more fortunate, at this early period, in the integ- 
rity of his supplies than he was, later on, in that of his log- 
books. 

We wish that we might know with equal assurance of the 
presence on or absence from the flagship of a far more in- 
teresting personality and one far more closely connected 
with the finding of the western hemisphere. Whether among 
the Admiral's associates was to be seen the spare form of 
Fray Juan Perez, of Marchena, lately father superior of 
the convent of La Rabida at Palos, is unfortunately a dis- 
puted question. Owing to the frequent and excessive 
divergences which had existed in the computations made 
by the pilots of the "Santa Maria," "Pinta," and "Nina" 
in the prior voyage, Columbus had proposed to their 
Majesties, before leaving Seville, the appointment of an 
astronomer to accompany him on his return to the Indies, 
whose duty it should be to study the changing stars and 



58 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

record his observations for the greater security of the 
pilots in making their observations. He was himself far 
more deeply versed in this art than most navigators of the 
day and had been most fortunate in his own estimates of 
latitude and longitude on the former expedition; but, either 
because he had found the risk of relying on one set of 
observations to be too great, or because he wished to have 
the assistance of a trusty coadjutor in the work of naviga- 
tion, he had brought the proposal before the King and 
Queen. One man there was, abundantly qualified for the 
position, who had the confidence both of the sovereigns 
and their Admiral. That one was the learned friar whose 
interest in astronomy and its sister science, geography, had 
stood Columbus in such good stead when he knocked at 
the gate of the little convent above Palos two years before, 
as he was leaving Spain, disheartened. As successful 
advocate before the Queen of the plans of Columbus for a 
western voyage, there were peculiar reasons why the ap- 
pointment of Juan Perez should be acceptable to all inter- 
ested. Their Majesties accordingly forwarded to Columbus, 
just prior to his sailing, a commission for the office of 
astronomer, accompanied by a letter which strikingly 
manifests the extreme consideration with which they de- 
ferred to the Admiral's wishes. "It seems well to us," 
they wrote, "that you should take with you a capable 
astronomer, and that Fray Antonio of Marchena would be 
a good man for this office, both because he is skilled in 
that art and because he has always seemed to us to agree 
with your views. Therefore, if you think well of him for 
the place, let him go; if not, then any one else you may 
choose. We send you our commission for him with the 
name in blank; fill it in for whomever you think should go. 
But do not delay a single hour on this account; for if he 
does not go now he can follow in some one of the caravels 
which we shall have occasion to send after you to inform 
you of what happens here." Unhappily the record goes 
no further; nothing authoritative remains for us to deter- 
mine whether the priest to whom- Ainerica owes so much 
sailed for the new lands with the man he had aided so 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. 59 

efficiently to find them. It is not probable that he did, 
for Columbus makes no mention of his friend in record- 
ing, later on, the names of those who rendered service on 
this expedition, and an intentional omission is not con- 
ceivable. From this time Fray Juan Perez of La Rabida 
— the Fray Antonio of Marchena, as some called him — 
disappears from the record. 

Little did the mass of the Admiral's followers care for 
the means by which the New World ^ was discovered or the 
people who had planned the deed. All they cared for was 
to reach speedily those distant shores where both spices 
and gold "grew," and where there were none to oppose 
their harvesting save naked savages or, at the worst, the ill- 
armed levies of some Tartar prince. As for the Sea of 
Darkness across which lay their path, its mystery was ex- 
ploded. The Admiral and his men had crossed and re- 
crossed it in safety a few months before, and they knew 
whither to steer. It was small concern of any one else 
where the new lands lay. 

On Wednesday, the 2nd of October, the eighth day after 
leaving Cadiz, the fleet came in sight of the Great Canary 
and made for the first harbor. Columbus had wished to 
reach Gomera, another of the Canary group, where there 
was a settlement of some size from which he could obtain 
fresh supplies and water; but one of the caravels had 
sprung a leak and he made for the nearest port to repair it. 
It was not until after midnight that he could continue his 
voyage, and then a succession of calms detained him until 
the 5 th, when he anchored before Gomera. Here he 
spent two days in taking on wood and water, fowls, swine 
(eight of these interesting animals, at seventy-five cents 
each), sheep, goats and calves, and a stock of seeds and 
cuttings of oranges, lemons, citrons, melons, and other 
fruits and vegetables. When he had stopped here the year 
before, on his outward voyage, the townspeople had filled 
his inexperienced sailors with wild tales of the horrors of 

1 We use the phrase advisedly; not as intimating that it was so 
called at the time of which we.write, but that it was such in fact to all 
who had heard of the strange lands oversea. 



6o THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the unknown Western Ocean, and prophesied for captain 
and crew alike a dreadful annihilation. Now they, too, 
looked with complacency upon the conversion of what had 
been from time immemorial the Sea of Terrors into an 
ocean highway, and cheerfully drove their thriving trade 
with the man whom twelve months ago they had consid- 
ered a hair-brained enthusiast sailing to a certain doom. 
But the Admiral was in no mood to tarry at Gomera and 
exchange "I told thee so's" with the men who had until 
so lately believed that only Chaos lay west of their islands. 
By Tuesday, the 7th, he was ready to hoist all sail and 
stand for the farther side of the Atlantic. He had prom- 
ised Diego de Arana and the thirty-eight men left at the 
fortress of Navidad under the protection of King Guacana- 
gari that he would make all speed to return to them; and, 
now that all was ready, he was anxious to redeem his 
pledge. Before leaving Gomera he handed the pilot of 
each vessel a sealed packet, containing the course to be 
sailed in order to reach Guacanagari's territory in His- 
paniola, with positive injunctions not to break the seals 
unless the squadron should be dispersed by some tempest. 
In that case the pilots were to steer direct for Navidad; 
but, failing such disaster, they were merely to follow his 
lead. This precaution he deemed necessary in order to 
avoid all possibility of any knowledge of his route being 
communicated intentionally or by accident to the Portu- 
guese ; for he still expected to encounter them somewhere 
before reaching the Indies. This provision made, he 
weighed anchor and started on what Dr. Chanca naively 
describes as " the long journey it was proposed to make 
without seeing land." The fleet encountered calm weather 
shortly after leaving port, and it was not until the 13th that 
they passed Ferro, the westernmost of the Canaries, and 
got fairly out to sea. Columbus felt some anxiety to get 
clear of the archipelago, for it was just here that, the year 
before, a Portuguese flotilla had almost succeeded in inter- 
cepting him as he began his westward passage. No signs 
of an enemy now appeared, however, and the expedition 
settled down to the dull routine of the voyage that was 
ahead of them. 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. 6 1 

"By God's blessing favorable weather returned to us," 
Dr. Chanca writes, "the best that ever fleet enjoyed on so 
long a course; so that, having left Ferro on the 13th of 
October, we saw land on the twentieth day thereafter. We 
should have seen it in fourteen or fifteen, if the flagship 
had been as good a sailer as the other vessels; for often the 
others had to shorten sail, as they were dropping us far 
astern. In all this time we encountered no gale, save on 
the eve of St. Simon, when one fell upon us which for four 
hours placed us in great straits." 

There is little to be added from other sources to the 
worthy surgeon's brief record of the voyage. Columbus 
steered a more southerly course than in the previous year, 
when he held his ships due west from the Canaries in the 
belief that by so doing he should the sooner reach the 
Asiatic shores. He was moved by several considerations 
to strike out for the lower latitudes in this new venture, 
but chiefly because by so doing he should more probably 
reach the great islands which, his Indian interpreters had 
affirmed, lay to the southeast of Hayti, when he left the Bay 
of Samana in the preceding February, homeward bound. 
In that direction, his native guides assured him, were to 
be found the homes of those savage man-eaters at the 
mention of whose very names they shook with dread ; there, 
too, was Matinino, the island peopled only by warrior- 
women; there the land of Guanin, formed of solid gold. 
To visit these on his way to Hispaniola was motive enough 
to the mind of an explorer, but a stronger reason suggested 
itself to Columbus. On the first voyage, days before reach- 
ing San Salvador, both Martin Alonzo and himself were con- 
vinced by the flight of birds ^nd other signs that land was 
to be found in the Southwest. The former was disposed to 
alter their course to make it, but Columbus insisted that 
their objective was the eastern extremity of Asia; and the 
islands to the southwest, if such they were, must be sought 
on a subsequent cruise. Now, however, he desired to 
ascertain, if it could be done without too great delay, their 
character and position; for, he argued, if they in reality lay 
on the course to Hispaniola and so much nearer Spain, as 



62 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

appeared, their possession was a matter of the first impor- 
tance in view of the present elaborate projects of acquisition 
and colonization in the Indies. There had also been some 
vague talk while he was coasting along Hayti of a great 
mainland to the south, and by bearing in that direction it 
was possible he might come upon, or at least learn more 
about it. Moreover, there was that hint of the Portuguese 
geographers to which King Ferdinand had referred, — that 
other lands, perhaps a continent, would be found lying 
south of the equator between the Cape of Good Hope and 
the line of demarcation fixed by the Papal Bull; and this 
it behooved Columbus to investigate. Finally, it was a 
fundamental proposition in the cosmography of the day 
that the greater treasures of India lay in its southernmost 
extremity, — wherever that might be, — or in the adjacent 
islands. Columbus had already alluded to this as his own 
conviction in the journal of the year before, and he now 
determined to go as far toward the south as he deemed 
advisable at the time. If Cuba, Hayti, and the other 
islands which he had found farther north had yielded such 
abundant promise of future wealth, what might he not find 
in the lands which lay nearer the equator, in those glowing 
regions which, as King Ferdinand observed, "owing to 
their neighborhood to the sun, must be very profitable and 
richer than all the others " ? Had it not been for his 
anxiety to reach the garrison left at Navidad, there is 
every reason to believe that he would, even on this voyage, 
have headed well down into the southwest, crossed the Line, 
and struck the coast between the Orinoco and the Ama- 
zons. 

The fleet pursued its unvex^d way across the unfamiliar 
sea, and the same marvels presented themselves to the con- 
sideration of sailors and landsmen alike as had been en- 
countered by the superstitious crews of a year ago; but now 
there was no thought of running aground on the fields of 
Sargasso, or being driven into limitless space by the monot- 
onous easterly breeze. Even when, on the eve of St. 
Simon, after a furious gale of several hours' duration, the 
ghostly flames of the sacrosants flickered at masthead and 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION 6^ 

yard-arm, they evoked only a chorus of Ave Marias and 
Laudates from the ships' companies, who saw in them the 
good St. Ehno's promise of smoother seas and kinder gales. 
It was well, perhaps, that no fiercer storms were encoun- 
tered; for a number of the ships were as leaky as the water- 
butts they carried, and, between the heat of the sun, the 
labor of bailing, and the short allowance both of wine and 
water, any prolonged season of bad weather would have 
found the iieet ill-prepared to resist it. Fortunately, just 
as the discomforts of the voyage were beginning to tell on 
the less enduring of the company, those more skilled in 
such matters began to discern signs of proximity to land. 
On October 24th the pilots estimated that they had made 
450 leagues from the Canaries, which would put them in 
about that longitude where Columbus had first begun to 
observe such signs on his former voyage and now hoped 
to strike land. Shortly thereafter a single flying-fish came 
aboard one of the ships and was hailed as a harbinger of 
land, — a puny herald from the shores of the mighty con- 
tinent of Asia. Still later, the heavy massing of clouds in 
the afternoon skies, accompanied by sudden and violent 
downpours of rain, were interpreted as a sure portent of a 
neighboring coast, and all became watchful and eager. By 
the I St of November the fleet was within the charmed zone 
in which lies the noble chain of islands we call the Carib- 
bees. The practised eye of the Admiral accumulated so 
much evidence of the nearness of land that, in accordance 
with his custom on nearing a coast, he ordered sail to be 
shortened on all the vessels at sundown and a double watch 
to be kept. Two days more were passed in strained expec- 
tancy. Little doubt that they were busily employed by 
those on board in the polishing of arms and armor, the 
furbishing of gaudy apparel, and the preparation for a befit- 
ing entry into whatever port or city they might reach. The 
weariness and indolence of the long sea journey gave way 
to extravagant anticipation and the construction of fan- 
tastic dreams : the adventurous were heroes all in their 
own conceit; the covetous, rich beyond the dreams of avar- 
ice; the pious, blessed with a harvest of countless rescued 



64 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

souls; the careless, happy in the thought of liberty and 
license. It was not in human nature, especially Latin 
nature, to be otherwise than buoyant, in their situation. 
At any moment the lookout in the tall castle at the bows 
might sing out that he saw the outlines of the new world 
which held the assured fortunes of every man of the fifteen 
hundred. Of the conditions, environments, or qualities of 
those fortunes they neither knew nor cared; sufitice it that 
they were there. Meantime they were sailing in a world 
of magic, where the skies were as blue as their own Medi- 
terranean seas and the ocean a so much deeper azure that 
the sky was pale by contrast; where by day the cloudless 
vault above was sustained by massive foundations of snowy 
vapor lying on the horizon's edge, which at the sun's 
setting became domes of burnished gold supporting vast 
arches of glittering opal and mother-of-pearl suspended 
above a lake of fire; where at night the familiar stars, though 
all misplaced, seemed far nearer and more brilliant for the 
change, and the very air itself took on a strange, caressing 
sweetness; where at all times, by day as well as by night, 
the steadfast Trade-wind hummed in the rigging and sang 
past the ear as though the spirits of the mermaids were 
abroad. There was reason even for the men of favored 
Seville and Cordova to feel that they were in another and 
more beautiful world. 

On Saturday, the 2nd of November, the pilots made their 
computations of the distance sailed since leaving Ferro. 
Some made it 780 leagues, others 800, others more or less. 
The variation was not great and their substantial agreement 
heightened the confidence all felt of soon seeing land. The 
signs multiplied as the day wore on, and the Admiral's 
trained eye saw in the color of the water, the haziness of 
the horizon, and other like omens the certainty of an early 
landfall. The night was passed in anxious watching. Who 
can doubt that the keenest lookout was that of the Admiral 
himself? No vagrant light appeared, as on that wakeful 
October night of the past year, to hint of an inhabited 
country hidden by the curtain of darkness, nor did a 
friendly moon, as then, ride overhead to illumine the black 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. 65 

seas and touch with silver the distant beaches. Yet, as 
steadily as the passage of the hours, more than one huge 
bulk was rising above the horizon and arraying itself across 
the path of the hurrying ships as they noiselessly drove 
deeper into the western shadows. So rapidly did these 
grand forms lift, that the nearest one at length loomed for- 
bidding and distinct against the dusky sky, even in that 
darkest hour which is said to precede the dawn; and the 
weary watchers on the Admiral's ship were startled by a 
sudden cry out of the darkness, " The largess to me, Seiior 
Admiral, for there is land ! " The cry was echoed from 
ship to ship, and answering shouts bore witness to the joy 
with which the welcome tidings were received. " I do not 
know any one who had not seen enough of water," pithily 
observes Dr. Chanca, in recording the delight with which 
the news was hailed; and we may accept his sentiment as 
that of his fifteen hundred companions. 

The impatience of the waiting voyagers was not long 
taxed, for within an hour the gray morning light began to 
break, and even before the rising sun appeared above the 
horizon its rays were gilding the stately summits which rose 
ahead of the fleet to a height of 5000 feet. It was day- 
break on Sunday, Domingo, the 3rd of November, and the 
Admiral christened the island (for such it clearly was) la 
isla Dominica (Sunday Island). To the right and left 
other majestic outlines showed themselves, betokening 
other islands within easy sail; but for the present all eyes 
were rivetted on the panorama unfolding before them as the 
sunlight, driving the white mists before it, crept down the 
mountain sides, penetrated the deep valleys, and at length 
flooded sea and land with its early splendor. None, except 
the Admiral and such as had already watched with him from 
a vessel's deck the breaking of day on the sierras of Eastern 
Cuba and Northern Hayti, had ever witnessed such a vision 
before; probably those who now saw for the first time the 
glory of early morning among the Caribbees never again 
felt, from a similar cause, the same emotions of exuberant 
delight and admiration. Imagination cannot picture a 
more romantic and inspiring ending to a voyage whose 

5 



66 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

result was so purely speculative, than to sail from the dark- 
ness of a night like all that had preceded it into the 
unsullied beauty of early day off the windward shores of 
Dominique. 

Orders were issued that the ships and their crews should 
be dressed in gala array preparatory to the formal act of 
landing and taking possession of the new discovery. The 
vessels were brought closer to the land and an unavailing 
search made for some accessible port. They had struck 
the coast where the rugged conglomerate cliffs rise precipi- 
tously from the water's edge, and although these were broken 
here and there, so that deep ravines and open valleys could 
be seen leading up into the heart of the towering ranges 
beyond, no safe anchorage could be found. For more than 
a league the Admiral led the way along the shore, without 
discovering a harbor or a trace of habitation. As far as 
the eye could penetrate inland the island, from the ocean's 
margin to the summit of the idle craters which crowned the 
loftiest peaks, was covered with a dense forest. The men 
were impatient to explore the secrets of a country which 
was literally hidden beneath so glorious a wealth of verdure 
and exhaled on the morning air a subtle perfume suggestive 
of myriads of flowers and spices, at a season when foliage 
and flowers were a rarity in their own Spain; but the Admiral 
would not risk his boats or his people in the venture. Some 
ten or twelve miles to the north of Dominica he had observed 
another island, much smaller in size and apparently much 
more accessible, since its outlines were far less mountainous 
than those of the larger one. Detaching a caravel to con- 
tinue the reconnoissance for a port along the coast of 
Dominica, he sailed northwards with the remainder of the 
fleet. On nearing the island he found that it offered no 
difficulty to his disembarking, and, selecting a convenient 
harbor, brought his ships to anchor and made preparations 
for the solemn ceremony of taking possession of these new 
territories and their circumjacent seas for the Crown of 
Spain. 

Shortly after noon the placid waters were alive with scores 
of small craft, plying between the vessels and the strand. 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. 6y 

The Admiral entered his barge, grasping the royal standard 
with both hands, and was rowed ashore with all the cere- 
mony established for the passage of an officer of his rank. 
He was followed by the clergy, his principal officers, by the 
commanders of the vessels, their pilots, the men of rank 
attached to the expedition, and, finally, by a large propor- 
tion of the ships' companies and crews. Once landed, a 
convenient spot was chosen and the forces arrayed around 
their leader, who, unfurling the royal banner with one hand 
and unsheathing his sword with the other, took possession 
of the islands in sight, the sea which embraced them, and 
all the unseen lands its waves might lave. This he did, 
Dr. Chanca tells us, "in the manner provided by law"; 
a truly Castilian way of reporting the appropriation of 
that half of the world's surface whose existence had 
been denied within the twelve-month. The worthy sur- 
geon, doubtless, meant no more than that his chief 
broke the branches, dipped up the water, and piled the 
hillock of earth as he had done at San Salvador on the day 
of its discovery, practising therein the form adapted by 
still earlier discoverers on African shores and mid-Atlantic 
islands. To this simple political ceremony succeeded the 
more elaborate offices of the Church, and the new Viceroy 
set an example of attentive reverence to his followers as 
Fray Boil and his dozen of tonsured associates recited, for 
the first time in the western lands, those prayers and invo- 
cations which were to prove so fatal a shibboleth to their 
unhappy natives. 

The Admiral named this lesser island Maria Galante, — 
from the vessel he commanded, so it is said; but it is more 
likely that the name both of ship and island had a common 
origin in the invocation to Holy Mary, Full of Grace, — 
Galaute. As soon as the formalities of taking possession 
were finished and duly certified to by the attendant notary, 
the assembled throng dispersed in all directions, eager to 
feast their ocean-wearied sight upon the strange nature 
which surrounded them. They noted the dense forests 
which grew to the water's edge, the unfamiliar palms and 
vines which filled their dark recesses, the novel spectacle 



68 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

of blossom, fruit, and bud upon one and the same tree, and 
the absence of any sign of the approaching winter's touch 
upon the lavish vegetation around them. Some of the 
saunterers found a tree, the fragrance of whose bark and 
foliage convinced them that it bore the coveted cloves; 
others cautiously gathered and examined the singular fruits 
which abounded on all sides; still others plucked the dainty 
manzanilla and, deceived by its beauty, tasted warily of it, 
only to have mouth and face swollen and deformed by the 
violence of its poison. Much as there was to delight the 
eye and charm the senses of men who had been cooped 
unwholesomely in narrow quarters for so many tedious 
weeks, it soon became apparent that Maria Galante would 
yield nothing more substantial to protracted exploration. 
No signs of habitation were found, and the Admiral, after 
passing two or three hours on the island, gave orders for his 
people to reembark on the ships. His object was to make 
sail at once for another island, of huge bulk and lofty height, 
which lay at a distance of some fifteen or twenty miles to 
the north of Maria Galante; but he found it necessary to 
wait until late in the afternoon for the return of the caravel 
he had detached to coast along Dominica. This vessel 
reported that she had at length discovered a good port and 
seen both houses and people, so the Admiral was satisfied 
that these lordly islands were not unpopulated. The fact 
was of importance to him, because, according to his reckon- 
ing, these were either the homes of the Caribs, or Cannibals, 
of whom the natives of Hayti and Cuba had told such grue- 
some tales, or else they were the populous lands of gold 
which, the same informants indicated, lay to the southward. 
The Admiral lay at anchor that night, taught by his experi- 
ence among the shallow waters of the Bahamas and Antilles 
not to make for the islands in the darkness; but as soon as 
it was daylight he left Maria Galante, and steered for that 
end of the northern island where, in the words of Dr. 
Chanca, " there was a great mountain which seemed to want 
to reach to heaven." As the fleet drew nearer to this peak, 
the obser\^ers noticed that near its summit a broad strip or 
band of dazzling white was visible, stretching towards its 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. 69 

base; and bets were freely made as to whether this was a 
stratum of rock, a road, or an immense waterfall. On a 
closer approach it was seen that from the loftiest smiimit of 
the mountain several cataracts descended, the most notable 
of all being the one which had attracted the Spaniards' 
interest from so great a distance, and which, from their 
decks, "appeared to fall from the skies." This was but 
one of the elements of unwonted grandeur in the scene 
which lay before them as they drew near to the southern 
shores of the noble island. Its coast was less forbidding 
than that of Dominica; but there was the same succession 
of gigantic terraces sweeping inland and upward from the 
sea, the same deep glens and open valleys, the same tow- 
ering precipices, strangely wooded craters, and piercing 
peaks, and over all was the same dense covering of deep 
forest shades. Many a wanderer who has seen far more of 
the globe than was open to Dr. Chanca's experience in 
1493 will be disposed to agree with him that, as seen in the 
early morning, the landscape dominated by the great Sou- 
friere and Sans Tacher of Guadalupe is " the most beauti- 
ful thing in the world." 

As soon as the fleet drew near the island the Admiral 
despatched a caravel of light draught to look for a conven- 
ient harbor. The little vessel returned in a few hours, 
and her captain reported that a couple of leagues along the 
coast he had found a safe port and effected a landing near 
a native settlement, which had been deserted by its inhabi- 
tants as soon as they saw the Spaniards. In the houses were 
found a quantity of cotton, both unworked and in yarn, a 
store of food, some parrots of extraordinary size and beauty, 
and, most important of all, " four or five bones from the 
legs and arms of men." Of all these articles the captain 
presented his commander with specimens, but the Admiral 
neglected the others for the relics of departed humanity. 
What, to the general sight, were only evidences of the fero- 
cious habits of the wild races of these Indies, were to him 
a proof of the correctness of his conclusions as to the sit- 
uation of the dreaded Caribs, at whose mere names the 
peaceful islanders of San Salvador and Cuba had paled and 
shaken with terror. 



yo THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

"As soon as we saw them," Dr. Chanca writes, "we sus- 
pected that these were the islands of the Caribes, which are 
inhabited by people who eat human flesh; because the 
Admiral, guided by the signs which had been made to him 
on the previous voyage as to this locality by the Indians of 
the other islands he had before discovered, had directed 
his course to reach them, not only because they are nearest 
to Spain, but also because by this route is the shortest way 
to come to Hispaniola, where he had before left his people. 
To them we have come, by the mercy of God and the wis- 
dom of the Admiral, as directly as though we followed a 
beaten and familiar road." 

There is no warrant for challenging the sincerity or truth- 
fulness of this surgeon's report. It is free from all trace 
of servile laudation of his commander's acts and deeds; in 
fact, it is almost unique among the early records of the 
period in the straightforward, professional manner in which 
it relates events as they occurred. In ascribing, under 
Providence, to the foresight and rare ability of Columbus 
the successful conclusion of a voyage planned on such broad 
and comprehensive lines that it was intended, if possible, 
to establish a permanent route to the new possessions, while 
it solved the problem as to the habitat of the fierce savages 
who threatened the peace of the proposed colonies. Dr. 
Chanca did no more than justice. While cruising along 
the shores of Cuba and Hayti, Columbus had had pointed 
out to him every quarter of the compass as that in which 
the richest countries lay. All he had seen, besides those 
two great islands, were the Bahamas and the hazy outlines 
of Porto Rico as, homeward bound, he left the Bay of 
Samana. With a world to choose from, he so planned his 
voyage as to settle the most immediately important geo- 
graphical and political problems before him, without unduly 
delaying his arrival at the fortress of Navidad; and in so 
doing, we believe with Dr. Chanca, he gave new evidence 
of extraordinary sagacity and courage. 

It was too late in the afternoon when the captain of the 
exploring caravel made his report for the Admiral to attempt 
a landing; so he contented himself with sailing along the 



THE BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION. yi 

coast for a couple of leagues, and came to anchor in the 
port selected by the caravel. As the squadron passed along 
shore, numbers of native cabins were seen and their inhabi- 
tants could be descried fleeing to the woods as the strange 
winged craft drew near; so the Admiral gave orders that at 
daybreak a party should land with the Lucayan interpreters 
and endeavor to communicate with the people. 

To the magnificent island whose grand volcanic shapes 
were fast hiding in the gathering darkness he gave the name 
of Guadalupe, in fulfilment of a promise made to the 
monks of a convent nestled among the mountains of that 
name in the province of Estramadura, where he had gone 
to pay one of the vows assumed by him during the fearful 
tempests encountered on his homeward voyage the year 
before. 




IV. 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. 



THERE was no lack of matter for conversation aboard 
the Spanish ships as they lay at anchor on the 
night of November 4th, but we may doubt whether much 
time was spent in discussing the beauties of Nature. 
Officers and men alike had heard from the Admiral and 
his earlier followers of the bloodthirsty savages who drove 
their huge canoes of forty and fifty paddles across wide 
stretches of those quiet seas and ravaged from the most 
distant islands the living materials for their horrid ban- 
quets, and here they were at close quarters with these very 
demons. As the fleet made its way to the anchorage, all 
had seen small parties of natives scurrying into the woods; 
and the Admiral had remarked that they were as naked as 
the tribes he had met with on his former voyage. Later, 
came the report of the captain of the caravel, supported by 
the parcel of human bones; and thus ample food was fur- 
nished for the active Spanish imaginations to work their 
wildest. The prospect of being brought into actual contact, 
perhaps conflict, on the morrow with the savage anthro- 
pophagi of the Indies, of whom such wild tales were told in 
European markets and seaports, must have excited many a 
thrill of qualified anticipation among the soldiers and men- 
at-arms and led to many a speculation and boast. Fighting 
was no novelty to the seasoned veterans of the Moorish wars, 
but they might well dispute as to how it were best to 
act among such impenetrable forests, and be pardoned a 
shudder as they spoke of the doom that awaited the prisoner. 
72 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. 73 

The Admiral lost no time in putting his men to the 
proof. At daybreak he sent tvvo of his captains on shore, 
accompanied by a strong escort. They entered a neigh- 
boring village and were surprised to find that, while most 
of the inhabitants fled, two young men and half a dozen 
women ran toward and not away from the Spaniards. 
These they received, and succeeded also in capturing a 
number of the fugitives, including a little Carib who was 
abandoned by the warrior in charge of him. After exam- 
ining carefully the houses and their contents, the recon- 
noitring party divided, some returning with their prisoners 
to the ships, while the rest followed the paths which led 
inland from the village. Somewhere in the village they 
came upon what appeared to be the sternpost of a Euro- 
pean vessel, and an iron dish, or pan. The former was 
supposed to be a piece of wreckage carried across the 
Atlantic by wind or current, or else the timber from the 
Admiral's wrecked flagship of the first voyage. The pan 
they could not account for. There is no reason to doubt 
that more than one ship had been driven across the Atlan- 
tic and stranded on western shores prior to the advent of 
Columbus; but we know no more than those Spanish sailors 
did, as they debated the origin of the strange jetsam 
among the palm-thatched huts of Guadalupe. The young 
Indians were brought before the Admiral, and, with the aid 
of the San Salvador interpreters, made themselves fairly 
well understood. They came, they said, from Buriquen 
(Porto Rico we name it), having been captured there by the 
Caribs on one of their man hunts. This island where they 
now were was called Turuqueira, and was the chief home 
of the Caribs, although they also dwelt on Dominica (which 
they called Ceyre) and another island known to them as 
Ayay. They and their men companions were reserved by 
their captors for future consumption; the women who had 
fled to the Spaniards were also captives, but were not 
considered eligible for the cooking-pot. Their destina- 
tion was matrimony, or the Caribbean substitute therefor. 
They accounted for the appearance of so few Carib men 
among the natives seen by saying that ten canoe-loads had 



74 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

lately gone off on a man hunt, leaving only their women to 
guard the captives. To prove them, the Admiral asked if 
they knew where Hayti was. They pointed at once to the 
northeast, where it lay, though distant from Guadalupe by 
more than 500 miles, as the homing seabird flies. All this 
they told, we are informed, "as well as they could, with 
hands and eyes, and motions and gestures of a soul in 
distress"; and the Admiral was greatly interested by their 
narrative. 

Meanwhile, a boat had returned to shore for the Span- 
iards who had remained, and it soon returned with most of 
them, and also a number of women, who, they afifirmed, had 
fled to them as they marched through the neighborhood. 
The Admiral, somewhat suspicious of these repeated ap- 
peals for protection, ordered that this last batch of refugees 
should be returned to the beach, loading them with beads, 
bells, and looking-glasses as an indication of good will. 
No sooner were they landed and the boat once more on the 
way back to the ships, than the natives appeared from the 
woods and coolly appropriated everything the women had 
received. Later on in the day, when some of the ships' boats 
went ashore for water, the same women came running down 
to them again, accompanied by two boys and a young man, 
all imploring to be taken off. This time they were kept, 
and added to the Admiral's fund of information by giving 
him the names of a multitude of islands which they affirmed 
to lie in those seas, as well as of a certain "great land," 
which the Admiral thought was probably Terra Firma. 

All this coming and going and making of presents had 
at last convinced the Caribs themselves that no harm was 
intended to them, and gradually all their women and a few 
men came down to the waterside to examine the ships, and 
even waded out to inspect the small boats when these drew 
up on the beach. The Spaniards called out " tayno, tayno," 
which was the word used by the natives of Hayti and the 
Bahamas to signify anything good or pleasing. But, as 
sometimes happens with the linguistic efforts of more 
modern travellers, this well-meant greeting was gibberish 
to the Caribs, and they remained on their guard, ready to 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. 75 

take to their heels at the first movement made by their 
strange visitors to leave the boats. 

The Admiral saw no reason for lingering at Guadalupe. 
He had verified the nature of the people inhabiting these 
islands and ascertained their condition. From the captives 
he had learned approximately the distance to Hispaniola 
and the existence of many islands on the way thither, and 
he was disposed to hoist sail and pursue his cruise without 
further delay. So far, no conflict had occurred with the 
Caribs, and he wished to avoid one. There had been 
enough of mild excitement and military activity to gratify 
the ardor of his soldiers and yet not expose them to the 
danger of becoming provender for the truculent man-eaters. 
His waiting garrison at Navidad was ever in his mind, and 
by leaving Guadalupe before nightfall he would be one day 
nearer them. To his surprise and disgust, a peremptory 
difficulty barred his departure. Diego Marquez, the royal 
inspector and captain of one of the caravels, had gone 
ashore at daybreak, it now appeared, with two of the pilots 
and a force of eight armed men, and had not since been 
seen or heard of. This was in direct defiance of the Ad- 
miral's authority and orders, and he did not attempt to hide 
his displeasure. Searching-parties were hastily sent on 
shore with orders to enter the forest at various points, 
sounding trumpets and firing arquebuses to attract the 
missing party. The remainder of the afternoon was spent 
unavailingly in this manner, and darkness fell with no 
signs of the absent men. All the gloomy conjectures of 
the preceding night were now revived. To the perils of the 
wilderness were added the horrors of an ambuscade by the 
treacherous cannibals. Some little comfort was gathered 
by their shipmates from the fact that Marquez was accom- 
panied by his pilots; for, they argued, with their aid it 
would be easier for him to extricate himself if he was 
merely lost in the woods. If he had been surrounded and 
overwhelmed by the natives, — well, the bundles of bones 
and the stories told by the rescued men and women indi- 
cated what would be the fate of inspector, pilots, and men-at- 
arms. In the morning the Admiral despatched new search- 



76 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ing-parties, each with its trumpet and with instructions to 
penetrate the forest in different quarters and spare no effort 
to find traces of the lost men. The morning passed with 
leaden feet. "Every hour seemed a year," Columbus tells 
us, for he was impatient to start for Hispaniola. If the 
dark wilderness of the woods baffled his search, he would 
have to abandon the men to their fate and proceed with his 
voyage. He might, indeed, leave Marquez's own caravel 
behind, with directions to wait a reasonable time and then 
to follow the fleet; but he feared there was small chance 
of her finding Hispaniola alone. When the scouting- 
parties returned at evening, with no other tidings than a 
discouraging account of the impassability of the tangled 
woods, the Admiral reverted to his determination to pro- 
ceed without the absent party. He was loth to do this, for 
it seemed like abandoning his men to 'the most terrible of 
deaths; but the welfare of his 1500 other companions de- 
manded that he should not keep them confined in their 
cramped quarters for an indefinite time, and he felt, 
besides, that his first duty was to reach his garrison at 
Navidad. After much consideration and discussion he 
resolved to make a final effort. Liberty was given to all in 
the fleet who wished to go on shore during the day and 
there "disport themselves and wash their clothes" at 
pleasure, with such restrictions as discipline demanded. 
Alonso de Hojeda was ordered to take forty picked men 
and get on the track of the missing party, if possible. He 
was also instructed to make careful observations of all he 
saw, as he penetrated into the interior of the island, and 
report upon its products and character. The task was both 
difficult and dangerous, and the Admiral selected Hojeda 
as qualified to render the best account of himself in its 
execution. 

Day after day passed without any word of the lost inspec- 
tor, or of those who were searching for him. The crowd 
of men of all degrees who hastened ashore to avail them- 
selves of the liberty granted found only too much in the 
course of their investigations to confirm their gloomiest 
apprehensions as to the lot of their missing comrades. As 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. yj 

they entered the native cabins within a wide radius from 
the harbor and examined with curious interest all that they 
found, the Spaniards were horrified to meet with repeated 
evidences of the truth of the ghastly tales they had heard 
concerning the Caribs. Human bones neatly arranged in 
parcels, carefully prepared skulls hanging from the rafters 
of many of the huts, other bones from which everything 
eatable had been picked "so that nothing remained on 
them except what was too hard to gnaw," and "in one 
house the neck of a man cooking in a pot," were some of 
the tangible proofs of the gastronomic tastes of the Indians 
of Turuqueira. With these suggestive examples before 
them, the Admiral and his officers subjected the fugitives 
who were under his protection to a close questioning as to 
the habits of their captors. They answered without reluc- 
tance all that was asked of them, the women in particular 
speaking with great freedom, — as of a matter not inti- 
mately affecting themselves, perhaps, since they ran no risk 
of ending in the manner under investigation. According 
to them, the Caribs of the three islands already mentioned 
systematically raided the islands in those seas, sometimes 
pursuing their expeditions for a distance of three or four 
hundred miles. As a rule, they brought together a goodly 
fleet of canoes and presented a respectable force ; the party 
at present away in the ten canoes from Guadalupe would 
represent four or five hundred men, for example. They 
were armed with bows and arrows, and lances or darts, 
headed with sharpened fragments of turtle, fish, or human 
bones, which were quite sufficient to kill a naked enemy. 
On reaching the island they proposed to harry, the Caribs 
conducted themselves much as the Arab slavers of Central 
Africa do nowadays. They killed all who opposed them, 
but wasted no unnecessary lives, capturing all the men and 
women possible. Such men as were slain were eaten on 
the spot; the living captives were brought back to the 
island. Here the men were allowed a certain liberty for 
such time as they required to reach a proper condition for 
cooking, and then they were disposed of as the Spaniards 
had seen. The women added that the Caribs carried mat- 



78 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ters so far that they did not scruple to eat their own sons 
whose mothers were not Caribs. When boys were made 
prisoners, they were kept as slaves until they reached man's 
estate and then eaten in their turn. Man's flesh was con- 
sidered by these interesting ruffians to be " so good that 
there is nothing like it in the world," — an opinion which 
we have ourselves heard asserted, but with much shame- 
facedness, in later days, by those who knew. 

Thus far we have followed Dr. Chanca's extremely busi- 
ness-like and unemotional report of his personal observa- 
tions of the cannibal practices of the Caribs. Peter 
Martyr, who might justly pass as a man of science in his 
generation, was in Medina del Campo in Old Castile when, 
in the following April, twelve of the Admiral's ships re- 
turned to Cadiz. He sought out their commander, Torres, 
and from him and other faithful and credible men who came 
with him from the Admiral procured a detailed account of 
this voyage for the information of his friend and patron. 
Cardinal Sforza. He writes that they told him that "they 
found also in their [the Caribs'] kitchens men's flesh, 
ducks' flesh, and goose flesh, all in one pot; and other on 
the spits ready to be laid to the fire. Entering into their 
inner lodgings, they found faggots of the bones of men's 
arms and legs, which they reserve to make heads for their 
arrows, because they lack iron. The other bones they cast 
away when they have eaten the flesh. They found likewise 
the head of a young man fastened to a pole and yet bleed- 
ing." The Admiral himself, according to Las Casas, went 
on shore one day and entered some cabins, where he saw, 
together with some looms and other signs of industry, 
"many heads hanging up and remains of human bones." 
Dr. Chanca mentions, quite as a matter of course, that he 
found an "infinite number of men's bones." We know 
that among scores of tribes, both in America and else- 
where, both in 1493 and at the present day, human flesh 
was and is sought for and fought for, and eaten for the 
mere love of it as frequently as for reasons of superstition 
or revenge. Doubtless some reader of these lines has him- 
self met with men who preferred the meat of their fellow- 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. 79 

creatures to veal or chicken. The writer certainly has. 
And yet we are asked by those whose self-imposed office is 
assumed to be "the destruction of a world's exemplar " in 
the interests of Historical Criticism, to believe that these 
reports were concocted by Columbus and his followers "to 
enhance the wonder with which Europe was to be im- 
pressed," and that to them "the cruelty of the custom was 
not altogether unwelcome to warrant a retaliatory merci- 
lessness." "Historians have not wholly decided," we are 
gravely informed, " that this is enough to account for the 
most positive statements about man-eating tribes. Fears 
and prejudices might do much to raise such a belief, or at 
least to magnify the habits." We have no more sympathy 
with those who would make a spectacular demi-god of 
Columbus than we have with those who labor to prove him 
a vulgar adventurer and discredited romancer; but we 
humbly submit that this is a question of fact beyond the 
province of armchair scepticism. Why Columbus and his 
companions should be accused of cheap (and wholly un- 
necessary) lying, and yet every missionary and traveller 
from Oceanica and Darkest Africa be listened to with bated 
breath and grateful spinal shivers while they relate similar 
experiences, is a mystery beyond our layman's compre- 
hension.^ 

In the course of their enforced stay in Guadalupe, the 
Spaniards had opportunity for securing many of the Carib 
women and a few of their men. These proved to be of for- 
bidding countenance, with long hair, beardless faces stained 
black around the eyes to render their appearance more 
ferocious, and with bands of cotton drawn tightly about the 
knees and ankles to make the calves of their legs bulge out 
in a grotesque manner. Their cabins were built in a sightly 
manner of branches wattled with cane, and were thatched 
with palm-leaves, much as we find them to-day among the 

1 Herrera, writing one hundred years afterwards, affirmed that " to 
this day the natives of Dominica go to the island of San Juan to hunt 
men for eating." He adds that many of them had desisted from the 
practice by reason of the violent colic from which they suffered after 
eating a Spanish friar ! 



8o THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

same mountains. They seemed to have a greater abun- 
dance of food than the natives of the other islands, and 
possessed no small skill in the arts of the potter and the 
weaver, their hammocks and cloths of cotton being notice- 
ably well made. Notwithstanding this comparative ad- 
vancement, they were brutal in all their habits, and so 
great was the terror they inspired that their former captives 
trembled at the very sight of one, even when they were 
themselves protected by the Spaniards and the Carib was a 
prisoner. In a word, every day confirmed further the 
accounts which the quaking inhabitants of the Bahamas 
and Northern Hayti had given to the Admiral the year 
before, when they pointed to the southeast and affirmed that 
there dwelt the "Canibals," whom he supposed to be the 
Asiatic anthropophagi of Marco Polo, — the subjects of the 
Great Khan. 

On the fourth day after setting out on their search, 
Hojeda and his command returned to the iieet. He 
brought no tidings of Marquez or his men, but told a mov- 
ing tale of hardship and fatigue endured in his long 
march through the pathless jungle. Of the riches of 
Nature, Hojeda had enough to report. Gum mastic, gin- 
ger, incense, wax, sandal-wood, and other aromatic treas- 
ures, he affirmed, were to be found in quantities. Game 
birds and songsters of every variety abounded. The land 
was fertile and the forests full of gigantic trees of precious 
woods. So well watered was it that he had crossed no less 
than twenty-six rivers, the waters in many of which came 
above the belt. He had encountered few natives, and none 
of these were men. So far as his observations went, it was 
evident that, in comparison with Cuba and Hayti, Guada- 
lupe was virtually uninhabited. 

Shortly after Hojeda's arrival, Marquez himself appeared 
with his pilots and soldiers and a train of ten women 
and boy prisoners. "We had already given them up for 
lost and eaten by these people who call themselves Caribs," 
writes Chanca; "for there was no reason to believe them 
lost in any other way, since there went with them some 
pilots, seamen who knew how to go to and come from 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. 8l 

Spain by the stars, and we did not think it possible for 
them to lose themselves in so narrow a circuit." Both 
inspector and men were in so dilapidated a condition that 
their shipmates were filled with pity, which increased when 
they heard the story of their sufferings among the path- 
less woods and rugged mountains. They accounted for 
their long absence by saying that the woods were so 
dense that they could guide themselves neither by sun 
nor stars. Utterly without direction or hope, they had 
wandered among precipices, marsh and jungle, tattered 
and starved, apprehending an ambush behind every huge 
buttressed tree or liana-woven thicket. The sailors made 
shift to climb some of the tallest trees at night, in the hope 
of getting a glimpse of the polar star, but without avail. 
In truth, no more emphatic testimony could be borne as to 
their abject desperation than the attempt to climb by night, 
in the depth of a tropical forest, up or down the bare shaft 
of any tree of height apparently sufficient to view the stars. 
At length, when their exhaustion was complete, a pilot 
caught the gleam of the sea, and they made their way to the 
coast. Taking, whether by chance or intention, the right 
direction, they arrived in safety at the ships. " We were as 
delighted to see them as though they had just been found," 
Dr. Chanca tells us; but the Admiral judged that the perilous 
insubordination of Marquez required reproof. He there- 
fore placed the inspector under arrest, and punished his 
followers according to their degree; by which necessary 
measure he made at least nine enemies, one of whom had 
friends at Court, and afforded his critics, four centuries 
later, occasion to comment upon the facility with which he 
estranged the affections of his followers. 

On Sunday morning, the loth of November, the fleet 
weighed anchor and stood to the north along the leeward 
coast of Guadalupe, making slow progress on account of 
light winds. The next day they were clear of the land, 
and steered for another island, distant some forty miles to 
the northwest. This also proved to be mountainous in its 
character, covered with dense forests, and having bold 
shores i sing abruptly from the sea. O'ving to the resem- 

6 



82 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

blance of its wild and rugged contour to that of the 
famous penas of that name in Spain, the Admiral called 
this island Monserrate. The Indian women on board the 
flagship declared that it was desolate, all its inhabitants 
having been carried off by the Caribs; so no attempt was 
made to land. From this position a number of other 
islands were visible east, north, and west, and the fleet 
was headed a little more to the latter quarter. At a 
distance of a few miles to the leeward, a single barren 
dome of rock rose to the height of many hundred feet from 
waters whose deep blue denoted that they were wellnigh 
fathomless. Streaked with white and dim-colored patches, 
the side towards the fleet presented an inaccessible wall of 
forbidding smoothness, with no other growth than scanty 
lichens and no other life than screaming sea-fowl. The 
trained eye of the Admiral remarked its impregnable char- 
acter, and he noted " that without scaling-ladders and ropes 
let down from above it appears impossible to reach the 
top." To this lonely crag he gave the name of Santa 
Maria la Redonda. Near by were some shoals, where he 
found anchorage for the night, not caring to risk farther 
navigation in the darkness. The next morning, soon after 
getting under way, a long outline was descried in the 
northeast, which, in comparison with the lofty volcanic 
summits of its- neighbors, was low and regular. Without 
approaching it closer, the Admiral christened it Santa 
Maria la Antigua. Continuing on his course and bearing 
more to the westward, he soon came up to a lofty symmet- 
rical cone rising from the centre of a small island, which 
reminded him of a snow-clad peak near Barcelona, the scene 
of his recent triumphs at the Spanish Court. He gave the 
same name, Nieves, or Snows, to the dead volcano of these 
distant seas, and as Nevis we still know it. Near to this 
was still another group of forest-crowned summits, towering 
far into cloud-land out of the sapphire depths, and this he 
named St. Christopher, after his patron saint. From here 
he steered for the largest of the islands to the north, passing 
by several smaller ones to the westward. Whatever dis- 
position he had to tarry on his way and inspect some of 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. Z^ 

these inviting lands was put aside. All that he had seen 
and heard of the Caribs had inspired him with anxious 
concern for the safety of his forty pioneers at Navidad, and 
he was even more impatient to reach them than curious to 
learn the nature and products of the magnificent archi- 
pelago through which he was sailing. Past the majestic 
cliffs of St. Eustacio and Saba, the fleet held on its way 
towards an island of larger size, where the low savannahs 
of the coast swept up to a long range of elevated table- 
lands. To an island of much less size near by, the Admi- 
ral gave the name of St. Bartholomew, apparently in affec- 
tionate remembrance of the brother who had parted from 
him six years before to plead his great project of discovery 
before the English King Henry. As the ships drew closer, 
the larger island, which he called St. Martin, showed in the 
cultivated clearings seen along shore evidences of a consid- 
erable population. They came to anchor in a convenient 
harbor, as the Admiral determined to ascertain whether 
these natives also were Caribs, and verify, if possible, the 
distance and exact direction of Hispaniola, — not because 
he was wandering at random, as Dr. Chanca is careful to 
explain, "but because in doubtful matters one should 
always seek the greatest possible certainty." The Span- 
iards could find no one in the village where they landed to 
hold converse with, as all the natives had fled at their 
approach; so the fleet speedily continued its course, steer- 
ing now almost due west, as they had reached the latitudes 
wherein Hispaniola should be found. ^ 

On the second day after leaving St. Martin, November 
14th, the fleet reached an inhabited island to which he gave 
the name of Santa Cruz (the Holy Cross), from some fanci- 
ful idea of its shape. Here he anchored and sent boats 

^ Here occurred one of those trifling incidents which give us an 
insight into one of the chief causes of his success as an explorer. As 
the anchors were hoisted home, Columbus noticed that their flukes 
brought up the debris of coral instead of the muddy spoil of Guada- 
lupe's harbor. The observation was not without its significance when 
we bear in mind the fact that the group of which this is the centre is 
not of the same distinctively volcanic formation as are the other islands 
among which he sailed. 



84 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ashore to have speech with the people. As usual, the natives 
betook themselves to the woods, but the Spaniards secured 
four women and a couple of boys. They also proved to be 
captives in the hands of the Caribs, and said that this was 
the island called Ayay by the cannibals and was one of their 
chief strongholds. A party of thirty men was accordingly 
landed, to protect the boats' crews who went ashore for 
water and to make a reconnoissance of the neighborhood. 
They found much the same kind of village as in Guadalupe, 
but could discover no traces of the people. While they 
were absent, a large canoe came around a point of the coast 
manned by four men, two women, and a boy. At the sight 
of the Spanish vessels they dropped their paddles and sat 
gazing in blank amazement at the bewildering spectacle. 
While thus engaged, the landing-party put off from shore in 
their barge and started for the ships, only to be surprised 
in turn by suddenly encountering the Carib canoe. The 
Indians were still so absorbed in contemplating the extraor- 
dinary spectacle of the great winged craft that the barge 
was almost upon them before they perceived the danger. 
In a twinkling they had seized their paddles, and began to 
make for the shore. A skilful movement of the Spanish 
boat cut off their retreat, and the white men, who sought to 
capture them unharmed, were on the point of seizing the 
canoe, when the Indians dropped their paddles, grasped their 
bows and, both men and women, sent a flight of arrows into 
the crowded barge. Two of the Spaniards were badly 
wounded, one with a couple of arrows through the chest, 
the other with one between the ribs. The interested spec- 
tators on the decks of the ships remarked that an arrow dis- 
charged by one of the women pierced through a shield 
carried by one of the soldiers. Before the Caribs could 
repeat their murderous volley, the barge was steered straight 
for the canoe, and, striking it squarely, threw its occupants 
into the water. Little difference did that make, however, 
for, finding a foothold on a sunken rock as they swam 
towards land, the Indians faced their assailants and sent 
another flight of arrows into them, which would have been 
as disastrous as the first had the soldiers not protected them- 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. 85 

selves with shields and targets. Even when the barge 
returned against them, they fought so desperately that it was 
necessary to run a spear through one of the men before he 
could be dragged inboard. With this exception they were 
finally secured unhurt and taken aboard the flagship, where, 
as Peter Martyr says, "they did no more put off their fierce- 
ness and cruel countenance than do the lions of Libya when 
they perceive themselves to be bound in chains." In due 
time these plucky cannibals were sent to Spain for the 
greater instruction of the King and Queen, and there Peter 
Martyr saw them. " There is no man able to behold them," 
he affirms, " but he shall feel his bowels grate with a certain 
horror, nature hath endowed them with so terrible, menac- 
ing, and cruel an aspect." The Spaniards themselves were 
inclined to give them full credit for their dauntlessness. 
"I say advisedly that they possessed great daring," Chanca 
says in describing the skirmish; "for they were no more 
than four men and two women, and our men numbered 
above five and twenty." By degrees they quieted down and 
even became communicative, telling their captors, among 
other things, that in Ceyre (Dominica) gold was so plentiful 
that when they went there, as was their custom, to fell trees 
for their canoes, each man gathered as much of the metal 
as he pleased. 

After making a stay of six or seven hours at Santa Cruz, 
the fleet steered for what appeared to be a large and lofty 
island somewhat to the north. On approaching nearer, it 
proved to be a group of forty or fifty islands, of which only 
one was of considerable size. To this the Admiral gave the 
name of St. Ursula, and to the surrounding archipelago that 
of the Eleven Thousand Virgins. The channels between 
these islands were so narrow and tortuous, and the white 
spray flying on all sides betokened so many hidden rocks, 
that he attempted no general landing, but sent a caravel of 
light draught to inspect a few huts, which, by their contents, 
proved to belong to fishermen. This group, unlike the 
other islands, was destitute of trees, and the Spaniards fan- 
cied they saw indications of valuable metal deposits in the 
brown, white, and grayish rocks of which it was chiefly com- 



86 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

posed. The day was passed in getting clear of the skirts 
of these holy damsels, and at night the westerly course was 
resumed. Afternoon of the following day found the fleet 
off the southeastern coast of the great island known to the 
Indians as Buriquen, from which most of the captives who 
had fled to the Spaniards at Santa Cruz and Guadalupe had 
been brought by the Caribs. As they coasted along, close 
inshore, they saw evidences of considerable population and 
systematic cultivation. The country along the coast was a 
beautiful succession of savannahs and rolling hills, while 
inland the mountains towered skyward, as in the great islands 
first encountered. The natives on board the Spanish vessels 
vaunted the beauties and fertility of their home, whose only 
curse was the periodical incursions of the Caribs. On the 
other hand, the Caribs on the flagship claimed that the 
Indians of Buriquen were as bad as they; that they used 
the same weapons, and when any unlucky man-eater fell into 
their hands the lex talionis was fulfilled to the letter, the 
genial inhabitants of Buriquen promptly putting their cap- 
tive beyond all chance of further roving by the simple pro- 
cess of cooking and eating him. In one respect the Caribs 
had shown themselves to be masters of strategy : they had 
for so long systematically destroyed or carried off all the 
canoes of the people of the island that by degrees these had 
lost all skill in the use of boats and were now virtually 
impounded within their own borders. 

On the afternoon of the 19th the fleet reached the western 
extremity of the island and came to anchor in a spacious 
harbor. The Admiral christened this latest discovery St. 
John the Baptist, and the name still lingers in the Spanish 
records; but for us it has been displaced by the more 
familiar one of Porto Rico. In this haven, which is iden- 
tified with the modern one of Mayagues, the Admiral 
remained two days, and a large part of his force was allowed 
liberty on shore. The Spaniards were particularly impressed 
with the regularity and neatness shown in the arrangement 
of a native village near their anchorage. A broad plaza or 
market-place was surrounded by cabins of unusual size, and 
from it a cleanly swept street led directly to the water's 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. 8/ 

edge, bounded on either side by walls made of living bam- 
boo wattled with cane. By the seaside was a tall edifice 
open at the sides, as if intended for a lookout or pleasure- 
house. Everything in the vicinity denoted recent occupa- 
tion, but not a native was seen during the time of the 
Spaniards' visit. 

At dawn on the morning of Thursday, November 21st, 
the fleet left Porto Rico and steered due west. Before night 
fell it was in sight of a huge range of mountains in that quar- 
ter, and the Admiral shortened sail accordingly. Early on 
the following day, the 22nd, he approached the coast, which 
at that point was so level and unlike the northern shores of 
Hispaniola that he had some doubt as to whether he had 
indeed reached his goal, and the doubt was shared by all 
who had been with him on the former voyage. The Indian 
women who were on the flagship insisted that this was in 
truth Hayti and not some other great island, like Dominica 
or Guadalupe; so the Admiral sent on shore one of the 
Indians whom he had taken to Spain from Samana Bay when 
leaving Hayti the preceding January. This man was told 
to ascertain the position of the fleet with reference to Navi- 
dad, and to explain to his countrymen the good intentions 
of the white men, their power and great resources, and the 
grandeur of their King and nation, as he had so recently 
seen it in Castile. He gladly accepted the service, was 
landed on the beach, — and disappeared from history. Las 
Casas thinks this Haytian was killed by his countrymen as 
a renegade. We prefer to believe that the sound of his own 
tongue and the sight of the familiar parrot-feathers and 
black paint, which formed the simple yet distinctive dress 
of his fellow tribesmen, pierced through his thin veneering 
of acquired civilization, and that he cast in his lot again 
with them, leaving the great Spanish cacique and his big 
winged canoes to shift for themselves. The Admiral waited 
in vain for his return, and at length got under weigh and 
resumed his course along the coast to the north. Toward 
evening he reached the entrance to a great bay, and had no 
diiificulty in recognizing it as that of Samana, whence he 
had taken his departure for Spain on the previous voyage. 



88 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

He made for the point on its northern side, which he had 
called Cape Angel, and there came to anchor, partly to have 
speech with the natives, and partly to bury one of his sail- 
ors, a Basque, who had died of wounds received in the 
skirmish with the six Caribs at Santa Cruz. While a boat 
carried the body on land, two caravels drew near the shore 
to guard it. Immediately a crowd of Indians swarmed 
around the boat, begging to be taken off to the fleet and 
offering all they possessed in exchange for the trinkets of 
the Spaniards. The latter refused to take them, not having 
permission from the Admiral; whereupon two of the eager 
natives leaped into a canoe and paddled to a caravel, where 
they renewed their importunities. As many of them wore 
golden ornaments around their necks and in their ears, the 
captain thought it best to take them to the flagship, where 
they were kindly received. They told the Admiral that 
their king had sent them and their companions to learn 
what manner of men these strangers were who were seen 
approaching over the sea. If they were of the same sort as 
the astonishing beings who had visited his territory earlier 
in the year, he desired them to come ashore, that he might 
give them all the gold and provisions they wanted. Evi- 
dently the cacique of Samana bore the white men no grudge 
for the punishment they had inflicted on his warriors a few 
months before, but remembered only the priceless gifts of 
cloth and beads he had received from them. To his invi- 
tation the Admiral responded that he would surely pay him 
a visit at another season, but that he was now in haste to 
reach the country of Guacanagari. With this reply he sent 
a present of shirts, sailors' bonnets, and other trifles, and 
the messengers departed in glee. Their favorable report 
inspired their companions with confidence, and a thriving 
traffic in golden ornaments, cassava bread, fruits, and yams 
was soon established with the Spaniards; for it was clear 
that the people as well as their king remembered what their 
visitors of the previous voyage most wanted. But the 
Admiral this time would not delay a moment longer than 
was necessary. Even the sight of the yellow metal, for so 
little of which he had been so willing before to wait so long, 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. 89 

was now of secondary importance; and, weighing anchor, 
he stood past Cape Angel and turned the " Maria Galante's " 
bow to the west, in the direction of Navidad. 

The perils and excitements of his second passage through 
the terrible Ocean Sea were over, and again it had proved 
but a speedy cruise over summer seas, with no more of hard- 
ship or danger than the sailors of his and of all times hail 
as the salt of their existence. A second time he had 
wrested from these unknown western waters a generous 
portion of the secrets they had so successfully guarded since 
the foundations of their deepest caverns were laid, and 
again he had given to his sovereigns an accession of domin- 
ion in comparison with which all the islands in the Midland 
Sea, from the Bosphorus to the Pillars of Hercules, were 
as nothing. He had traced far down toward the burning 
zone, where Earth's choicest products were supposed to be 
hidden, this line of giant islands which began with Cuba, 
and found them surpassingly fertile and beautiful, abound- 
ing with promise of untold riches. He had solved the 
mystery of the man-eaters who devastated the northern 
islands, and formed the opinion that they could easily be 
subdued and their islands converted into ports of call for 
the fleets which were to ply between Hispaniola and Cadiz. 
Finally, he had become imbued with the profound convic- 
tion that by steering yet farther south he should find other 
Guadalupes and Dominicas, if not the mainland of Asia 
itself. He had learned that the Indians of the Lucayos, 
Cuba, and Hayti had told the truth when they said, the year 
before, that there were other great islands to the southeast; 
why might they not be equally believed when they spoke of 
the vast country of Caribana, with its mighty kings and 
hordes of people ? From Dominica he had seen the blue 
mountains of other islands in that quarter, and only sailed 
away because his men at Navidad were counting the days 
till his return; what lands and races might not be waiting 
discovery and annexation in the fiery South? Whatever 
they were, they must bide his time. His work of explora- 
tion must be suspended for a season and his attention 
devoted to questions of administration and government. 



90 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Later on, if God were willing, he should strive to wrest from 
the ocean the secrets of the South as he had those of the 
West. 

As the fleet sailed along the Haytian coast in quest of 
Navidad, the Admiral marked the familiar headlands of the 
rugged shore as they hove in sight, and recalled the name 
he had given each as he had passed them homeward-bound 
on the former voyage. There was the Lover's Cape, and 
that of Father and Son; Spotted Cape, Cape of Good 
Weather, the Frenchman's, Round Cape, Dry Point, Iron 
Point, Angel Cape, Silver Mountain, Cape Fairlavvn, and 
then that River of Thanks where Martin Alonzo had landed 
and secured so much gold before rejoining his deserted 
commander. Each name suggested some incident of the 
eventful cruise in January, and there were not wanting 
tongues to vaunt the exploits of the days of the Discovery at 
the expense of those of the present voyage. But the mind 
of the leader was on other things, and it was the A^iceroy 
rather than the Admiral who watched the majestic pano- 
rama of forbidding sierra, smiling prairie, rugged promon- 
tory,, and inviting harbor which was slipping steadily by 
as the vessels held on their westerly course. Beyond yonder 
mountains was the province of Cibao, which he believed to 
be the Cipango of Marco Polo, abounding in gold and pre- 
cious commodities. One of his first cares woul.d be to inves- 
tigate its resources and the character of its people. In there, 
at the foot of Silver Mountain, was the Puerto de Plata 
(Silver Port). On the previous voyage he had examined it 
carefully and found it to be a noble site for a settlement, to 
serve as a base of operation and supplies for the golden 
districts behind it. The River of Thanks would be another 
good situation, but there was too little water on the bar. 
At Monte Christi, just beyond, was an admirable harbor, 
but the surrounding shores were low and might not prove 
well fitted for residence. He had left instructions with 
Diego de Araiia, at Navidad, to have these ports examined 
with the barge which he had left with the garrison for the 
purpose, for he was not satisfied with Navidad as a perma- 
nent situation for the town he proposed building, and, more- 



THE ISLANDS OF THE CANNIBALS. 



91 



over, he wished to be nearer the mines of Cibao. All this 
had no doubt been attended to, and the reconnoissance 
made of this province and those adjoining, as he had 
directed. He would hear his lieutenant's report, inspect 
the gold, drugs, and other products which had been gathered 
in his absence, and send them at once to Spain with such 
of the ships as he did not require. That done, the work of 
founding his colony, organizing his government, and pro- 
viding for the control of the natives and the speedy extrac- 
tion of the largest revenue possible would be diligently 
pushed. Subsequently the Viceroy would be again merged 
in the Admiral, and he would carry out his cherished plan 
of determining whether Cuba was really the eastern extrem- 
ity of Asia and whether that continent was prolonged to 
the south. 

This is no mere play of fancy. The writings of Colum- 
bus and his subsequent actions indicate beyond all question 
that he approached Navidad with a clear and definite pro- 
gramme conceived on these lines : indeed, the journal of 
his first voyage, in the portion written just after he left that 
garrison, allows us to see the tendency of his reflections; 
and all that followed, both in the preparations for the second 
voyage and in its conduct, only confirms the existence of 
a settled and systematic design of this nature. There was 
nothing blind or happy-go-lucky in his proceedings. What- 
ever other faults he had, this man acted on a consistent, 
well-digested, and comprehensive plan of campaign from 
the time he landed on San Salvador to the day of his return 
from his last voyage. Those who have the patience to fol- 
low his career will, we believe, admit as much.^ 

1 In this chapter we have chiefly followed the report of Dr. Chanca, 
as he was attached to the Admiral's flagship and in a position to know 
all that occurred. We have no remains of the journal of Columbus 
himself before the arrival of the fleet at Samana Bay. Here Las 
Casas begins his condensation of the Admiral's own record. The letter 
attributed to Guglielmo Coma and printed by Scillacio gives the news 
at second hand, and ranks with the letters of Peter Martyr, as being 
founded on what some participants in the voyage related to the writers. 




V. 



A BITTER DISILLUSION. 



WHEN the fleet arrived at the port of Monte Christi, 
the Admiral came to anchor and sent a boat on shore. 
He considered this so desirable a harbor that, when home- 
ward bound in January, he had examined it with particular 
attention; and, as it was only some eight leagues from 
Navidad, he expected to find some trace of Spanish occupa- 
tion. He was not disappointed. The boat's crew returned 
with the report that on the river's bank they had come upon 
two corpses, one of a young and the other of an old man, 
bound by the arms upon two rude crosses. To the Admiral's 
anxious queries as to whether they were natives or Spaniards, 
the crew could only reply that there was no means of telling, 
except that around the old man's neck and feet were cords 
of esparto grass, such as those made in Spain. Fearful of 
evil, the Admiral now landed with a large party, and on that 
afternoon and the next day made a thorough search of the 
neighborhood in the hope of obtaining some further news. 
The natives appeared in considerable numbers and showed 
the utmost friendliness. They manifested no embarrass- 
ment in meeting the Spaniards, but gleefully paraded their 
acquisition of a few Castilian words, touching the dress of 
their visitors and repeating "jacket," "shirt," to indicate 
their proficiency in the white man's tongue. For the mo- 
ment, Columbus was reassured as to the safety of his garri- 
son, for it was evident the natives had been in long contact 
with his men; but his distress was renewed when some 
sailors, on ascending the river, found two more corpses, one 
92 



A BITTER DISILLUSION. 



93 



of which still bore traces of a beard. This could be no 
Indian, and it only remained to ascertain whether these 
bodies represented stragglers from the fort, slain while 
engaged in some forbidden foray, or whether all the force 
at Navidad had shared a like fate. Filled with the gloom- 
iest forebodings, the Admiral returned on board, weighed 
anchor, and stood for the port of Navidad without further 
delay. While the fleet was under sail, a large canoe put 
out from land and rapidly approached the flagship, as if to 
inspect it. In a few moments it put about, and returned 
to the beach with the same speed. 

It was late in the evening when the fleet made the en- 
trance of the harbor, and, with a lively remembrance of its 
fatal shoals, came to anchor about a league off shore and 
waited for daylight before attempting to enter. Late as it 
was, the flagship discharged two cannon to see whether the 
garrison would give an answering signal, but the echoes 
rumbled through the night without eliciting a response. 
Long time the crowds of anxious voyagers which lined the 
bulwarks and thronged the castles of the little vessels watched 
for, at least, some fire or the gleam of a torch; but, save for 
the bright flash of the drifting fire-flies, no light appeared. 
The ominous silence sunk into the hearts of all. The damp 
night-wind drew straight from land, but brought no hail or 
cry; not a sound was to be heard, except the swash of the 
breakers on the shoals near by, or the low tones of the awe- 
stricken men. The blackness of the tropical night was 
deepest in the direction of the fortress, for there lay the 
forests with their double shade, which seemed pregnant 
with disaster and death. So passed the early watches; ear 
and eye were strained to catch some indication, however 
feeble, of the presence on shore of Araiia and his fellow- 
pioneers. But all in vain; silence and darkness reigned 
unbroken. Truly a portentous welcome for the Viceroy of 
the Indies; a bitter disillusion for his light-hearted com- 
panions. Towards midnight, the muffled beating of pad- 
dles, drawing steadily nearer, came over the still waters, and 
every watcher on the ships strained his eyes to catch a sight 
of the approaching boat. Would it contain a Spanish crew, 



94 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

or a band of naked Indians? Would its news be cause for 
excited vivas, or only deepen the deadly gloom which 
weighed down every soul aboard the fleet? Swiftly the dim 
outlines of a native canoe drew out of the darkness, heading 
for the caravel nearest the land. A few broken inquiries and 
eager rejoinders, and it swept away and steered for the flag- 
ship. As it approached, a throng of anxious faces bent over 
the rail and a score of questions were shouted into the dark- 
ness. No answer came, until the paddles ceased their hur- 
ried plashing and the canoe lay under the " Maria Galante's " 
counter. Then a single Castilian word was heard, buried 
in a flood of unfamiliar gutturals, — " Almirante ?" Yes, 
man, the Admiral is here; catch this rope and come aboard. 
Again the strange sounds ending with the one Spanish word, 
— ^'' Almirante ?'' The Admiral strode to the ship's side 
and ordered a bystander to hold a lantern, so the canoeman 
might see his face. No sooner did the light fall on his 
commanding form, than two of the Indians sprang on board 
and bent in prof ound salutations before him. The Admiral 
recognized in the principal one that nephew of King Gua- 
canagari who had so innocently betrayed the golden secrets 
of Cibao at the time of the Spaniards' first visit. Quickly 
calling Diego, the interpreter, Columbus asked the visitors 
what news they brought of his governor, Arana, and the 
garrison he had left in the fort yonder. The Indians gave 
some evasive reply and offered the Admiral two of the 
golden masks he had so willingly received when he was 
before with them, repeating at the same time a long com- 
plimentary harangue with which Guacanagari sent to wel- 
come the Spanish chief. Again the Admiral insisted upon 
knowing why his garrison had failed to answer his signals 
or give any signs of life, and at length the Indians ex- 
plained that some of the men had died from illness, others 
had been killed in a fight, and the rest had gone off into 
the interior with the harems which they had collected from 
among the native villages. Guacanagari himself was no 
longer at the town near Navidad, where Columbus had first 
met him, but was some distance off, laid up with a wounded 
leg. He wished greatly to come in person to see the 



A BITTER DISILLUSION. 95 

Admiral, but his hurt would not permit; as soon as he could 
move he would come. There had been a great battle, 
these messengers affirmed, between Guacanagari and the 
two Kings of Maguana, Caonabo, and Mayrionex, who had 
invaded the former's territory. They had been beaten off 
finally, but not before they had burned Guacanagari 's town 
and the fortress of Navidad, and grievously wounded that 
cacique. As to the safety of the Spaniards in the fortress, 
they would say no more than that some had been killed and 
others retired inland. The Admiral detained them on board 
for three hours, questioning and cross-questioning them in 
the hope of reaching some definite knowledge concerning 
his men. The Indians appeared to be frank and outspoken, 
and, despite the throng of white men who crowded to listen 
to the examination, they exhibited only satisfaction at being 
again with the white cacique;. but they added nothing to 
their first statements as to the missing Christians. Colum- 
bus gave them the food and drink which they had liked so 
much when he first arrived among them, and made them 
liberal gifts of the trinkets they prized. When they were 
leaving, he sent Guacanagari a couple of pewter basins and 
a number of showy articles, which were sure to be highly 
appreciated, and bade them tell the King that the Admiral 
would visit him shortly. With this they entered the canoe 
lying alongside, and in a moment were lost in the dark- 
ness. 

The Admiral and his companions on the flagship were 
left in perplexity, as the result of this visit. They had iden- 
tified the canoe as the same which had put out from shore 
in the afternoon to inspect the passing fleet, and Columbus 
had intentionally questioned the two savages in the presence 
of his officers. At the same time, friendly as they seemed, 
no one quite believed their statements. The almost palpable 
gloom and quiet which hung over sea and shore were more 
eloquent than the ready protestations of Guacanagari 's 
emissaries. The Admiral had more than once recited to his 
associates the incidents of his first arrival in these waters, — 
the swarms of canoes which surrounded his ships, the thou- 
sands of hospitable natives who flocked to do him honor, 



96 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the gifts of gold and other precious commodities with which 
he was received. They had themselves as often pictured 
the joy of their waiting countrymen when the stately fleet 
should appear in the offing, and had rehearsed the delights 
of dwelling amid such favored scenes after the discomforts 
and hardships of their long voyage. Here, however, was 
the stern reality. A single canoe, stealthily visiting them 
by night, stood for the thousand they expected; two naked 
savages, for the joyous crowd they hoped to see; the deathly 
stillness of this appalling gloom, for the noisy greetings of 
the pioneers of Navidad. They gathered some consolation 
from the repeated declarations of the two natives, to the 
effect that the greater part of the garrison was yet living; 
but an ugly report was circulated soon after the messengers 
departed that Diego, the interpreter, said they had told 
him that all the Spaniards at Navidad were dead. To the 
Admiral's apprehensions on this score was also added anxi- 
ety caused by the uprising of Caonabo and Mayrionex. He 
had counted on the same peace and friendliness which had 
so attracted him the year before, and had to encounter in- 
stead the difficulties and perplexities of a tribal war. His 
own expectations were as pitilessly annihilated as had been 
the brilliant hopes of his followers. For commander and 
followers alike, the long-anticipated arrival in the vaunted 
Hispaniola was the occasion of discouragement and mis- 
giving. 

Either because the wind did not serve, or because he 
deemed it more prudent to await Guacanagari's visit before 
landing, the Admiral did not enter the port of Navidad 
with the fleet until the afternoon of the next day, Thursday, 
November 28th. Early in the morning, however, he de- 
spatched a small force on shore to visit the fortress and 
examine the vicinity for traces of its former guardians. 
The search-party found nothing but the charred remains of 
the barracks and palisade, with some military cloaks and 
other garments scattered through the debris. There was no 
indication of a battle, beyond the destruction of the fort 
and its out-buildings. As the Spaniards were examining 
the ruins, a number of natives made their appearance; but, 



A BITTER DISILLUSION. 97 

instead of coming frankly to meet the white men, they 
hung back and seemed to be afraid; for whenever the 
Spaniards drew near they fled to the adjoining woods. 
Behavior so different from that which they expected caused 
abundant speculation among the visitors, and they sought 
to conciliate the Indians by throwing beads and hawk-bells 
towards them as evidence of pacific intention. With this, 
four of the natives summoned courage enough to join the 
Spaniards, one of the number being, as it appeared, a rela- 
tive of Guacanagari. The party thereupon returned to 
their boat, the Indians with them, and went aboard the 
flagship, where the x^dmiral listened to their report with a 
heavy heart. In answer to his questions, Guacanagari 's 
kinsman repeated much the same story as the two mes- 
sengers of the night before. Caonabo and Mayrionex, he 
afifirmed, had joined forces and come to attack Guacanagari 
and his Christian allies. A great fight followed, in which 
the assailants lost heavily as well as the defenders; but 
Guacanagari was routed and received an arrow wound in 
the calf of his leg. He was very desirous of visiting the 
Admiral, as soon as he heard of the latter' s presence on the 
coast; and, if the Admiral wished, the narrator would him- 
self go and tell the King how anxious the Spanish cacique 
was to meet him. To this Columbus assented, for he had 
begun to fear that last night's messengers must have been 
capsized and drowned, since no word had been received 
from Guacanagari during the entire day. Accordingly the 
four Indians were sent ashore, with the usual allowance of 
presents, and promised to make all speed in bearing the 
Admiral's messages to their master. 

Friday morning, as nothing further was heard from the 
King, the Admiral himself went ashore with a large party 
and scoured the neighborhood. He had little hope now of 
seeing any of his imfortunate pioneers alive. Although the 
Indians had obstinately refused to admit the death of all 
the garrison, there was a vacillation and embarrassment 
noticeable whenever they were pressed for details of the 
catastrophe which, as all might see, had overtaken the little 
colony. Some of the Admiral's associates maintained that 

7 



98 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the whole disaster was due to some act of savage treachery 
on the part of Guacanagari, and that his persistent absence 
was proof positive of a guilty fear. Columbus, however, 
refused to listen to any such theories. If Guacanagari had 
wished to free himself from the Christians, he had had ample 
opportunity, the Admiral argued, when they were ship- 
wrecked off his harbor on Christmas Eve the year before. 
The recollection of the King's unbounded hospitality and 
generous assistance in those distressful days forbade any 
suspicion of a subsequent faithlessness which was certain 
to involve him in a terrible vengeance. Consequently the 
Admiral preferred to believe that the other and wilder tribes 
had attacked the fortress and Guacanagari 's town, and de- 
stroyed both. When he reached the ruined stockade, he 
examined minutely all the indications which might throw 
any light on the nature of the calamity. The tall coarse grass 
of the tropics had overgrown the site, but this, on account 
of the rapidity with which it grew, conveyed no approxi- 
mate idea of time. Here and there was a broken bow, a 
soiled jacket, a rough table-cloth such as soldiers might 
use. No other sign was discernible, and the visitors were 
puzzled to account for the clothing scattered about. If 
there had been a raid by distant tribes, how happened it 
that plunder so valuable in the eyes of naked savages as 
these mantles and cotton cloths had been left behind? If 
there had been a fight, where were the slain? No one 
could conceive of twoscore Spaniards, possessed of artil- 
lery, arquebuses, and cross-bows, and protected by stout pali- 
sades, yielding themselves alive into the hands of a horde 
of Indians armed with nothing better than bone-tipped 
arrows and wooden spears hardened at the fire. All that 
they saw only deepened the perplexity of the Admiral and 
his companions, and the singular disappearance again of 
all the natives lent color to the worst suspicions. The one 
ray of hope that remained to him was that he had so 
straightly enjoined Araiia, Gutierrez, and Escovedo, and 
their men, that under no circumstances whatever were they 
to separate into several bands; that, come what might, they 
were to keep together. It was barely possible, therefore, 



A BITTER DISILLUSION. 



99 



that they might, on hearing of the proposed attack, have 
abandoned the fortress as untenable and retired to some 
more defensible position. But another of his written in- 
junctions, on parting from them, had been that, in the 
event of leaving Navidad, they were to bury in the pit dug 
for the purpose within the fort all the gold, spices, drugs, 
and other precious commodities which, in pursuance of his 
orders, they were to collect against his return. By inves- 
tigating this cache something of importance or value might 
be discovered. The Admiral accordingly set a party to 
work to clear out the pit, while he took Dr. Chanca and 
some others of his suite alongshore in the barge to look 
for a place more suitable than Navidad, where he might 
disembark his forces, "because it was quite time that we 
did so," the Doctor remarks, with professional solicitude 
for his cooped-up charges. A few miles from the ruined 
fortress they found a native hamlet by the shore, the in- 
habitants of which fled as they saw the Spaniards approach. 
Entering their cabins ("the huts were so damp and covered 
with vegetation that I am astonished they can live at all," 
Dr. Chanca says), the explorers found hidden away, indoors 
and among the shrubbery outside, quite a store of Spanish 
goods, which were too valuable to have been acquired in a 
lifetime by legitimate barter. There were Moorish hang- 
ings in packages as yet unopened, trousers and pieces of 
cloth, and one of the anchors of the Admiral's lost ship, 
the " Santa Maria." All these, he knew, had formed part of 
the large deposit of Castilian goods which he had left with 
Arana for trading with the natives, and their presence in 
such a place only increased his perplexity; while those of 
his companions who attributed to Guacanagari's treachery 
the destruction of the garrison found material enough 
wherewith to fortify their theories. For a moment the 
visitors were horrified, on opening a carefully closed 
basket, to find therein a human head, which they naturally 
feared might have belonged to one of their countrymen; 
but a moment's scrutiny showed that it was that of an 
Indian, and they learned from the Admiral that he had 



lOO THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

found several such in different places, both in Cuba and 
Hispaniola, when on his first voyage.^ 

The Admiral returned with his party to the former site 
of Guacanagari's town, near the fortress, and there found 
that a considerable number of Indians had assembled to 
traffic with the Spaniards, having to all appearance laid 
aside their fears, and seeming anxious to show their friend- 
liness to the white men. The latter had already secured a 
small quantity of gold from the natives when the Admiral 
arrived, and he took advantage of the newly established 
confidence to make another effort to reach the truth con- 
cerning his ill-fated settlement. This time he was more 
successful, albeit the success was a confirmation of his dir- 
est apprehensions. The Indians pointed out where eight 
of the luckless garrison were buried near the fortress, and 
the Spaniards soon after came upon three more bodies 
lying amidst the grass, which, from their clothes, were 
easily identified as belonging to Araiia's force. From the 
appearance of these last corpses and the height of the grass 
over the graves, the massacre, if such it was, must have 
taken place a month before, more or less. After this dis- 
covery, there remained nothing for the Admiral to do but 
endeavor to fix the responsibility for the disaster. While 
he was directing a search for some written document or 
other record which might throw light upon this question, 
— for nothing had been found in the pit, — he was ap- 
proached by several Indians, among whom was that brother 
of Guacanagari who had wished to accompany the Admiral 
to Spain when he was leaving Navidad. Several of these 
natives had acquired enough Spanish from the men of the 
garrison, before the annihilation of the latter, to make 
themselves at least partly understood, and could repeat the 
names of Araiia and all his followers, thus indicating their 

^ It was cherished with such obvious pains that Chanca says, " We 
judged it at the time to be the head of a father or mother, or of some 
greatly esteemed person," — clear proof, if any such were needed, that 
the observant Doctor distinguished between those fragments of human- 
ity kept from religious motives and those kept for merely nutritive 
purposes, as at Guadalupe. 



A BITTER DISILLUSION. loi 

familiarity with the occupants of the fortress. With the 
aid of the interpreter, Diego, a connected recital was pos- 
sible, and from this party the Admiral first heard a coherent 
statement of the circumstances attending the annihilation 
of the pioneer settlement of Europeans in the New World. 
According to their account, no sooner had the "Niiia" 
taken her departure, early in January, than disputes arose 
between the three lieutenants — Arana, Escovedo, and Guti- 
errez — and their men; the officers wishing to carry out the 
Admiral's instructions to explore the country, seek a better 
site for a town along the coast, and establish an active traffic 
with the natives, while the men wished only to enjoy life 
and secure all the gold they could for themselves. No 
doubt they argued that the chances were so small of Colum- 
bus ever reaching Spain, or, if he did, of his ever finding 
his way back to Navidad, that it was not worth their while 
to subject themselves to military discipline in his absence. 
At all events, every man traded for his own account, and 
each one appropriated as many of the native women as 
pleased his fancy, Gutierrez and Escovedo killed one of 
their associates in the course of a dispute, and thereupon 
made up a faction with nine others of the garrison who 
were Basques, and, abandoning the fortress, set out for the 
territories of King Caonabo, where the richest mines were 
said to be found, taking with them a bevy of Indian houris. 
On reaching Caonabo' s country, that wily chief at once per- 
ceived his opportunity, and, after learning all he could con- 
cerning the condition of Guacanagari and his remaining 
Christian allies, entered into a league with his brother May- 
rionex to descend upon Marien, as the territory of Guacan- 
agari was called, overthrow its king, and clear out the nest 
of mysterious strangers who had miraculously appeared in 
their island. As an earnest of his intentions, he killed 
every one of the Spaniards who had entered his country. 
While this plot was in preparation, most of the other mem- 
bers of the garrison had likewise wandered off in small 
groups of two, three, or four, as might be, bent upon lead- 
ing the lives that best pleased them among the simple and 
confiding people of Marien. At length Diego de Arana was 



I02 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

left with only five loyal companions to guard the fortress. 
All idea of fulfilling the Admiral's orders as to exploration 
and preparations for future colonization had to be aban- 
doned as completely as had been his injunctions to respect 
Guacanagari and offer no affront to his people. Affairs were 
in this posture when the two hostile kings made their 
appearance. Guacanagari endeavored to defend his town 
and avert the attack from the fortress, but was defeated and 
wounded. Caonabo and Mayrionex surrounded the stockade 
and succeeded in firing it and the surrounding cabins by 
night, whereupon Araha with his little band fled towards the 
water, hoping to escape in the darkness, but were all either 
slaughtered or drowned. The invaders withdrew into their 
own territories, Guacanagari took refuge in one of his own 
villages a few leagues away, and nothing remained to remind 
the Haytians of the wonderful visitation of the white beings 
they so foolishly believed had come from the skies, except 
a heap of charred timbers, a lot of scattered trumpery, and 
the corpses of thirty or forty strangers lying among their 
forests and mountains. 

The Admiral was inclined to accept this relation as true, 
but he found few among his companions of a like mind; 
they were equally convinced that the whole story was a fic- 
tion palmed off on the Spaniards by Guacanagari to conceal 
his own treachery, and pointed, as evidence, to the Euro- 
pean wares in the possession of his tribesmen and their 
avoidance of the white men when the latter first landed. 
"They all said, with one accord," writes Chanca, "that 
Caonabo and Mayrionex had killed the Christians, but at 
the same time they added their own complaint that, of the 
Christians, one had three wives, another four, and so on; 
from which we suspected that the harm which had befallen 
them had its origin in jealousy." Considering that the 
wives thus multitudinously appropriated by the white men 
were the wives and daughters of the speakers, one should 
think that their complaints might be justifiably made with- 
out necessarily implicating the complainants in a wholesale 
homicide. 

The next day further confirmation of the story told by the 



A BITTER DISILLUSION. 



103 



King's brother was received. The Admiral sent Melchior 
Maldonado and four or five of his officers, with a caravel, 
along the coast in one direction to look for a desirable site 
for the proposed new town, while he went in person, with a 
second caravel, to carry on the search in an opposite quar- 
ter. As seems to have been his habit, the Admiral carried 
with him the surgeon of the expedition, in order to have 
the benefit of his judgment as to the healthfulness of the sites 
examined. They came upon a port which offered many 
advantages, but was too far from the mines of Cibao to suit 
the Admiral's plans; so the party returned to the anchorage 
at Navidad, where they found Maldonado already awaiting 
them with important tidings. As he coasted leisurely along- 
shore, a canoe containing two Indians had put out from the 
beach and hailed the caravel. One of the natives proved 
to be Guacanagari ' s brother, who inquired who was on 
board the Spanish vessel. The Spaniards replied, some of 
their chief men; whereupon the Indian said that Guacana- 
gari had sent to invite them to visit him, as he was near 
there but could not yet leave his hammock. Melchior and the 
other officers accordingly landed and followed their guides 
to a village of some fifty cabins, where they found the King 
pretending, as they thought, to be invalided with his wound. 
He received them with much affability, and entered into a 
long story of the fate of the garrison at Navidad, which agreed 
essentially with what his brother had told the Admiral. In 
proof of what he alleged he showed the visitors his ban- 
daged leg, which somewhat modified their belief that he 
was shamming. When they took their leave he repeated 
his desire to see the Admiral, and presented each of the 
officers with a golden ornament, in proportion to what 
seemed to be his respective rank. This had a mollifying 
influence on some of the Spaniards, although others still 
insisted that the King was playing a part. 

Upon learning of the proximity of Guacanagari, the 
Admiral determined to visit him and satisfy himself con- 
cerning the attitude of his former ally. It was of the first 
importance to know whether he had indeed acted the part 
of a traitor or of a friend toward Araria's command. If 



I04 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the former, no punishment would be too severe ; if the latter, 
he might still be of invaluable assistance to the new colony. 
The next day, therefore, the Admiral set out for the vil- 
lage visited by Maldonado, taking with him Dr. Chanca in 
order to get a reliable report of the nature of Guacanagari's 
wound. He also ordered the whole fleet to weigh an- 
chor and shift to an anchorage nearer the hamlet where 
the King was. As we have, of late, heard so much of the 
heartless brutality of Columbus's treatment of the natives, 
it may not be uninteresting to hear Dr. Chanca' s own account 
of this visit which the Admiral paid to the disabled cacique, 
whom most of the principal officers were urging him to seize 
and punish for the massacre of the men of Navidad. 

"When we reached the place," the surgeon writes, "it was 
about meal-time ; so we breakfasted before going ashore. As 
soon as we were finished the Admiral ordered all of his captains 
to land with their boats. The Admiral landed at the same place 
with all his suite, so bravely attired that they would have made 
a goodly show in a capital city. He took with him some articles 
as presents, for he had already received quite an amount of gold, 
and it was right that he should show to the King the same 
liberality and good will. Guacanagari had also prepared an 
offering. When we arrived we found him stretched on a bed, 
of the kind they use, being a sort of cotton net suspended in the 
air. He did not rise, but from the bed made an attempt at 
bowing, as well as he knew how. He showed much grief, with 
tears in his eyes, for the death of the Christians, and began to 
speak of the affair, indicating, as well as he could, that some 
died of sickness, others had gone to King Caonabo to seek the 
gold m.ines, and others yet had been killed at the settlement by 
the natives who had come to attack them. (From the appear- 
ance of the bodies of the dead not two months had elapsed since 
this occurred.) At this time the King presented the Admiral 
with eight and a half marks of gold and five or six belts woven 
in stones of various colors,^ with a cap of the same work, which 
it seems to me they hold in much esteem. In the cap was a 
copper ornament, which was given with much solemnity. It 
seems to me that they hold copper in greater esteem than gold. 

1 This is not the only mention in the records of Columbus's voyages 
of the " wampum " which the Indians of North America prized so 
highly. 



A BITTER DISILLUSION. 105 

" I and another surgeon of the fleet were present ; so the 
Admiral said to Guacanagari that we were skilled in the ailments 
of mankind and he wished the King to show us his wound. 
The King replied that he was willing ; whereupon I told him it 
would be needful, if he could do so, for us to go outside the 
house, for there were so many people present that it was rather 
dark and we could not see well. This he did at once, — I think 
rather from timidity than from readiness, — and, I supporting 
him, we went outside. When he was seated the other surgeon 
went to him and began to unwind his bandages ; upon which he 
remarked to the Admiral that the wound had been made with 
ciba, which means a stone. After he was unbandaged we were 
able to feel him. It is certain that he had no more hurt in that 
leg than in the other, although he pretended that it pained him 
greatly. Altogether it was not possible to determine certainly, 
for the circumstances were unknown ; and with equal certainty 
there were many things which indicated that he had been at- 
tacked by hostile people." 

The Spaniards left the village and returned to their ships 
about equally divided as to whether Guacanagari was " play- 
ing fox " — to use their own expression — or was really the 
victim of his rival Caonabo's invasion. He was at least 
so much improved that he was able to join the Admiral and 
go on board the flagship, where he was regaled with the 
white men's delicacies and shown the horses, whereat he 
was mightily pleased. The Admiral took occasion to ex- 
plain that he desired to build a town near Guacanagari 's 
village, so as to be near him; to which he replied that he 
should be pleased, but that it was unhealthy by reason of 
the great dampness, — "and so it was of a surety," inter- 
jects the Doctor. Shortly after he took his leave and went 
ashore. Before he left, however, the Admiral hung around 
the King's neck a silver image of the Virgin, which he had 
before pressed upon him, but unsuccessfully. This inci- 
dent has been interpreted as an instance of his hypocrisy, 
but Columbus may have been telling the truth when he 
wrote of it that " he learned at the village that one of the 
thirty-nine men whom he had left behind [the garrison at 
Navidad] had spoken to the Indians and to Guacanagari 
himself certain things in insult to and detraction of our 



I06 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

holy faith, and that he [the Admiral] thought it necesary to 
set him [the King] right in this." The effort to make it 
appear that Colmiibus was forcing upon an unwilling sav- 
age the emblem of a faith which the latter loathed for the 
evil works which he had so recently seen done by its pro- 
fessors, is perhaps crediting Guacanagari with a sensibility 
as forced as would have been the suggested hypocrisy of 
Columbus. Silver was infinitely preferred to gold by the 
Haytians, and Columbus knew this, as we may see in the 
journal of his first voyage. To him the sacred image was 
a talisman as potent as it was to his companion Hojeda, or 
to ninety-nine out of a hundred of the men with him; while 
to its Indian wearer it was a fetish which would preserve him 
in this world and the next. As such, it was to Guacanagari 
an inestimable treasure, to possess which he might well 
sink the earlier fear of "bad medicine " which the disaster 
at Navidad had suggested. It was merely that best of all 
trades, — one in which both parties were thoroughly con- 
tented. 

At all events, the gentle savage monarch did not " shrink " 
from practising the very evils which we are asked to believe 
he so piously reprobated in the profligate garrison. Ten of 
the women rescued from the Caribs were on the flagship 
at the time of his visit, and among them was a tall beauty 
who had been christened Doiia Catalina by the Spaniards. 
The day after he had come aboard, Guacanagari sent to ask 
the Admiral when he purposed leaving the anchorage. 
Columbus replied, the next morning. Shortly afterwards 
the King's brother, with several other Indians, came aboard 
and engaged in bartering gold for the white men's trinkets. 
Some conversation passed between them and the rescued 
women, after which the men left the ship. That night, 
during the first watch, the dusky belles quietly slipped over 
the ship's side, one after another, and made such speed 
for shore that, by the time their absence was discovered and 
chase was made after them with boats, all but four had 
reached land and disappeared. As soon as it was day the 
Admiral sent to demand the fugitives from Guacanagari, 
saying that otherwise he should send at once and take 



A BITTER DISILLUSION. lO/ 

them; but the Spaniards found the village deserted by 
every living soul. With the women, Guacanagari, the 
earliest protector and ally of the Europeans in the New- 
World, disappears for a season from our ken. He is en- 
titled to all the credit he has received as an admirable 
type of the race to which he belonged; but there is some- 
thing grotesque in a criticism which asks us seriously to 
sympathize with his conscientious scruples against accept- 
ing from the hand of Columbus the badge of the Christian 
religion, because it permitted the wholesale abduction of 
women, and which then calmly proceeds to relate how, 
within twenty-four hours thereafter, he and his brother car- 
ried off half a score of the Spanish protegees who happened 
to attract their royal fancies. 

The sudden flight of Guacanagari intensified the suspi- 
cions of his bad faith cherished by most of the Spaniards. 
Some of the royal officers, and with them Fray Boil, the 
Papal legate, were disposed to criticise the Admiral 
because he had not laid hands on the King when the 
latter came on shipboard; while others as vehemently took 
the same view as Columbus and claimed that Guacanagari 
had only moved from the village to some other, following 
the sudden impulse of the moment, as was common with 
these childish people. The day was spent in discussion, 
for the direction of the wind was such that the fleet could 
not with advantage continue its cruise alongshore. Find- 
ing the same weather prevailing the next morning, the 
Admiral ordered out all the boats, and, accompanied by the 
lightest caravels, started to the eastward, keeping close to 
the land. His object was chiefly to find a suitable location 
for his proposed town, for none of those thus far inspected 
met all his requirements; but he also proposed, if possible, 
to make an effort to trace the runaway King. To this end 
he detached Melchior Maldonado with a force of three 
hundred men to explore a river which they came to, while 
the Admiral proceeded with the remainder to examine a 
harbor farther on, which he thought might serve. Wher- 
ever the Spaniards landed they found the native cabins 
deserted, and could meet with no one from whom to learn 



lOS THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the cause until, as they were walking in the neighborhood 
of one hamlet, they came upon a solitary Indian lying upon 
the ground with a ghastly lance wound in the back. The 
man said that he had been wounded in an encounter with 
Caonabo's tribe, and that they had also burned down 
Guacanagari's village. This only served to heighten the 
confusion under which the Spaniards were laboring con- 
cerning this enigmatical prince, and it was not lessened by 
the report of Melchior, who said that he had met a band 
of stalwart savages who disclaimed any knowledge of Gua- 
canagari, or connection with him, but had willingly 
exchanged tokens of friendship with the white men. Al- 
together, what with the imperfect knowledge Diego, the 
interpreter, had of the Haytian dialect, the still slighter 
skill in Spanish which the Indians near Navidad had 
acquired from the garrison, and the preconceptions which 
led the Admiral's followers to interpret gestures and half- 
understood phrases according to their individual bias, the 
mystery surrounding the destruction of the first settlement 
of Europeans in the western world was as far as ever from 
solution. "Thus, between our scanty comprehension of 
what they say, and the doubtful causes alleged," Dr. Chanca 
writes in despair, "we are all so befogged that even yet we 
have not been able to learn the truth concerning the death 
of our people." 

With this reconnoissance the Admiral suspended all 
active efforts to learn the exact fate of his lost garrison or 
trace the missing King. If any of the men he had left at 
Navidad survived, they were hidden somewhere in the 
inaccessible recesses of the gloomy Cibao mountains, or 
were living contentedly at ease in some remote native vil- 
lage. As for Guacanagari, any alliance with him now 
would be worse than useless. Not only was his power 
broken, but he had shown an unmistakable reluctance to 
reestablish the former intimate relations with the Spaniards. 
At the same time, Columbus could not bring himself to 
judge harshly the man to whom on that last fateful Christ- 
mas Eve he had owed his own life and that of all of his fol- 
lowers. He understood the native character better than 



A BITTER DISILLUSION. IO9 

most of his companions; certainly he realized the necessi- 
ties of their present position as fully as they. If he, then, 
allowed the King to go unharmed, it must have been 
because, in his deliberate judgment, it would have been 
unjust as well as impolitic to detain him. We have heard 
so much in these later days of Columbus as a "slave- 
driver," a "man-hunter," and so on, that it is only fair to 
quote his own reflections, as he entered them in his jour- 
nal at the time, upon this question of punishing Guacana- 
gari for the disaster which had befallen the settlement at 
Navidad. It is also no more than fair to bear in mind 
that, when he wrote, the Admiral was still laboring under 
the double disappointment of having his men sacrificed so 
unworthily and finding all his carefully matured plans for 
the collection of a much-needed revenue thwarted by their 
insubordination and defiance of his orders. What more 
sufficient justification did he need than the suspicions 
with which Guacanagari was surrounded and the almost 
unanimous opinion of the Spanish ofificers that the King's 
guilt was abundantly proved ? With far less to color their 
acts, Pizarro and Cortez did not hesitate to dispose sum- 
marily of the native princes who fell into their hands. 

" The Admiral further says in this place," writes Las Casas, 
transcribing from the journal of Columbus which lay before him, 
" that that priest. Fray Boil, and all the others, wished that he 
should seize Guacanagari ; but he did not desire to, although, as 
he says, he might easily have done so. He reflected that, since 
the Christians were dead, the capture of the King would neither 
serve to bring them again to life nor send them to Paradise, if, 
perchance, they were not already there. He also says that it 
appeared to him that this King should be treated here as are 
sovereigns among the Christians, who have as relatives still other 
kings who would deem themselves offended in the imprisonment 
of one of their number. The sovereigns of Castile had sent 
him here to people the country, and had spent great sums in so 
doing ; to seize the King would be a great obstacle set in the 
way of this colonization, since a war would surely follow and 
the native princes would not permit him to establish his town. 
Especially would this be a great embarrassment for the preach- 
ing of and conversion to our holy faith, which was what their 



no THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Majesties chiefly had considered in sending him hither. So 
that, if what Guacanagari had related were really the truth, it 
would be a gross wrong to seize him, and the whole country 
would hold the Christians in hatred and contempt. They would 
likewise consider the Admiral himself to be an ingrate on account 
of the great good which he had received at the King's hands on 
the first voyage, and still more because the latter had recently 
defended the Christians, to his own hurt, as his wounds testified. 
Therefore the Admiral determined first to establish his colony ; 
if, after doing so and being firmly settled in the country, he 
should learn the truth to be otherwise, he might then chastise 
Guacanagari, should he be found guilty." 

That these may be the words of sublimated hypocrisy 
we concede; but, had they been written by any other than 
Columbus, even his critics would admit them to be weighty 
and politic conclusions. 




VI. 

TAKING ROOT. 

IN the ten days which had passed since the fleet anchored 
off Navidad, the Admiral had had ample opportunity to 
gain a better knowledge of the topography of Guacanagari's 
province, Marien, than had been possible during the hurry 
and anxiety of his first visit. He saw now that the country 
was low and unhealthy, destitute of materials suitable for 
building, and, notwithstanding its good harbors and abun- 
dant rivers, not well fitted for permanent occupation. He 
determined, therefore, to return along the coast towards the 
east and fix the site of his town at some one of the ports 
which had so attracted his attention both on his first voyage, 
when he was returning to Spain, and more lately when bound 
for Navidad. His preference was for the Puerto de Plata, 
near the mountain of the same name, which lay well towards 
the eastern end of the island, as access to the mines of 
Cibao would be easy from that situation, and the harbor 
afforded the best facilities for the establishment of a com- 
mercial city. The fleet accordingly weighed anchor and 
left Navidad on Saturday, December 7th, sailing along the 
coast in the direction of Cape Cabron. The wind was con- 
trary, and they could get no farther that day than the islands 
at the mouth of Monte Christi harbor. On Sunday they 
doubled the mountain itself, but met with such violent 
headwinds that progress was wellnigh impossible. "It 
cost us more trouble to turn back these thirty leagues," 
writes Dr. Chanca, " than to come from Spain." On reach- 
ing the River of Thanks the weather was so stubbornly 



112 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

unfavorable that the Admiral ordered the fleet to put about 
and return to a port three leagues back, whose situation and 
features had attracted his attention. The vessels anchored 
in a spacious bay, into which poured a river of considerable 
size. The land lay in such fashion that shipping would be 
sheltered from all winds save those from the northwest, and 
there was abundant depth of water. A native village was 
situated at the river's mouth, and here the Admiral landed 
to examine the neighborhood. He found at a short dis- 
tance from the sea an admirable site for a town, at the con- 
fluence of a smaller stream with the river proper, where 
there was a fertile meadow surrounded by the dense prime- 
val forest. The water proved to be wholesome and fresh; a 
rocky bluff, partly encircled by a bend of the stream, 
afforded a commanding position for a citadel; and the gen- 
eral level of the land was such that the waters of the river 
could readily be diverted for filling a moat, irrigating fields, 
supplying power to mills, and other like necessary purposes. 
The Admiral was so pleased with all he saw that he decided 
then and there, " in the name of the Holy Trinity," to locate 
his colony. 

Orders were at once given to disembark both men and 
horses, and right joyfully were they obeyed.-^ Nearly three 
months had passed since they had left Cadiz, and the close 
confinement had told severely on men and beasts. More- 
over, provisions had begun to run short to such an extent 
that the quick eye of Dr. Chanca noticed with gratification 
that there was abundance of excellent fish in the harbor, — 
"of which we have much need by reason of the scarcity of 
meat," he adds. A camp was pitched in the meadow, at 
the foot of the eminence mentioned, and there, as rapidly 
as they could be unloaded, the supplies and munitions were 
brought from the ships. All who were able were willing to 
bear a hand in this work, if for no other reason than that 
they were once more treading on solid ground and moving 

1 Chanca says that he landed on the 5th of January, " to sleep on 
shore for the first time." The general disembarkation might have 
occurred a day or two later; but Irving is clearly in error in holding 
that the first Mass was held in the church on January 6th. 



TAKING ROOT. II3 

as freely as they pleased. Within a few days the ships were 
deserted by all save a portion of their crews, and the quiet 
meadow on the river's bank had become a swarming settle- 
ment of tents and leafy booths. 

Columbus wished that the first permanent colony founded 
in the new lands should bear the name of the sovereign 
whom he held in such especial veneration; hence he called 
the town which he was now establishing Isabella. He had 
discovered, to his great satisfaction, that in the immediate 
vicinity were good building stone, lime, clay suitable for 
brick-making, and abundance of timber. Therefore, as 
soon as he had become thoroughly familiar with the ground, 
and had conferred with his officers as to the best course to 
follow, he proceeded to lay out the town after what seems 
to have been a systematic and intelligent plan. On its 
front the site was protected by the river; on one flank a 
ravine prevented an easy assault by enemies; on the other 
and in the rear the jungle was so thick that, in the opinion 
of one of the settlers, " a coney could hardly squeeze through 
it, and so green that never in the world could it be set on 
fire." With the citadel built on the bluff hard by, the town 
would readily be defended in case of a hostile attack. 
Within this circuit the Admiral laid off the central plaza, 
so essential to all Spanish towns, from which the streets ran 
in designated directions. On these he assigned lots to his 
followers, grouping the principal men near the public 
square and apportioning the remoter sections of the town 
to those of less degree. Each man of rank or quality was 
directed to build his own house according to his own views; 
and most of them promptly intimated, on learning that they 
were expected to do the work themselves, that timber and 
palm- leaves would be preferable, from their standpoint, to 
stone or brick. But the Admiral ordered the public build- 
ings to be built in a more substantial manner, of stone and 
mortar, beginning with the immediate construction of a 
warehouse for the provisions, munitions, and stores of the 
colony, and following with a church and hospital, and a 
strongly built residence for himself. While a portion of 
his people were engaged on these labors, he put the rest to 



114 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

work at digging irrigating ditches, fortifying the bluff, 
erecting saw and grist mills, and planting the seeds or cut- 
tings of the grains, vegetables, and fruits brought from Spain 
and the Canary Islands. In short, foreign as such effort 
then was to the Spanish nature, within a week the newly 
landed colony was deep in all the manifold occupations of 
founding a city in a virgin wilderness. 

In the bustling activity of the first few days, amid such 
novel and picturesque surroundings, even the querulous 
held their peace for the moment. Scarcely an hour passed 
without the discovery of some supposedly valuable product 
of the forest or field, and the excited imaginations of the 
colonists already saw whole argosies laden for distant Spain 
with the precious commodities of the teeming Indies. Now 
it was the delicate fibres of vegetable wool with which huge 
thorny-trunked trees were burdened; now the great pods 
of whitest cotton, which bent the boughs of shrubs taller 
than the tallest man. In one place the trees produced a 
wax which rivalled the choicest yield of the hive ; in another, 
stores of turpentine oozed from the bark, in quantity and 
quality superior to any the observers had ever seen. One 
man found what he believed to be the highly prized nutmeg; 
another was sure he had seen some roots of ginger; a third, 
that he had discovered gum tragacanth; a fourth, that mas- 
tic was plentiful; a fifth, that the true bark of cinnamon 
was common in the forests. It verily seemed as though, 
whatever else befell, the famous drugs and spices of the 
Orient were to be had by the shipload for the picking. Nor 
were the treasures confined to the vegetable world; for it 
was not long before confirmation was received from native 
sources of the stories which the Admiral had heard con- 
cerning the abundance of gold in the sierras whose rugged 
outlines were plainly visible from the site of Isabella. This 
news tended still further to raise the spirits of those who had 
seen in the disaster of Navidad a presage of evil for the new 
colony, and the prospect of gathering the coveted metal with 
their own hands inspired fresh courage in the breasts of 
those who were disposed to yield to the strange feeling of 
lassitude and apathy which had already begun to affect so 



TAKING ROOT. II5 

many. For, despite the energy which the Admiral and 
some of his associates put into the work of building the 
city, the stimulus which all received as the evidences of 
natural wealth were disclosed to their eager sight, and the 
assurances of those who were supposed to know, that the 
climate was more salubrious than that of Andalusia, the men 
were drooping by the hundred under some insidious influ- 
ence. Both the Admiral and his fleet surgeon noticed this 
with an anxiety which they made no effort to conceal; but 
they hoped the evil would prove but temporary and that the 
change of habit and the ampler liberty of life on shore would 
soon restore the ailing. They had as yet acquired no ex- 
perience to teach them that in those otherwise favored lati- 
tudes Nature exacts a rigid penalty for the scars men inflict 
upon her smiling features; that every rod of black soil the 
Spanish implements upturned would sooner or later claim 
its tenant, and each giant felled in the surrounding forest 
supply a headboard for some grave. 

In our day the building of frontier towns and clearing of 
virgin wildernesses, whether in tropical or more temperate 
climes, has been so constantly described and illustrated that 
few are unfamiliar with the experiences encountered by 
those who undertake such enterprises. There is, however, 
a freshness and vividness in the description which Dr. 
Chanca gives of his life in those first days of the earliest 
city founded in our hemisphere which is free, at least, from 
all imputation of being a twice-told tale. 

"Many Indians, both men and women, are constantly coming 
in here," he writes, a few days after the landing, '• with their 
caciques, who are their captains, as it were. They are all loaded 
down with ages, which are a species of turnip, an excellent food, 
of which we make many kinds of dishes. It is so strengthening 
a food that it has brought comfort to us all ; for in truth the life 
we led at sea has been the hardest that ever men passed through, 
and it was so of necessity, as we did not know what weather 
might overtake us or how much time God might wish to keep us 
on the voyage. Thus it was prudence to deny ourselves ; so 
that, whatever should befall, we might preserve our lives. 

"These Indians exchange their gold and provisions, or what- 
ever else they bring, for lace-points, beads, needles, and pieces 



Il6 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

of crockery or plates. They call this age, hage, and the Caribs 
call it tiabi. All these people, as I have already said, go around 
just as they were born, except the women, who wear waistcloths 
made of cotton, or of grass and the leaves of trees. The holiday 
attire of men and women alike is to paint themselves ; some 
black, others white and red, in so distorted a fashion that to see 
them is enough to make one laugh. They shave their heads in 
places, and in places grow long locks in a way it is impossible 
to describe. In a word, all that shall be done yonder in Spain 
on the head of a lunatic, these Indians out here will heartily 
thank you for. 

"In this district we are in the vicinity of many mines of gold ; 
for, according to what the natives tell us, the most distant are 
not more than twenty or twenty-five leagues off. Some of them, 
they say, are in Niti, in the dominions of Caonabo, — the same 
who murdered the Christians ; others are in the country they 
call Cibao, which, if it please our Lord, we shall see and know 
with our own eyes before many days. We should have done 
this already, indeed, if there were not so many things to do that 
we are not enough in number to attend to them all ; because 
within these four or five days a third of our people have fallen 
ill, most of them, I believe, from the toil and hardship of the 
voyage, added to the difference of climate, although I hope in 
the Lord that all will rise again in health. 

" It appears to me that all these natives could be converted 
if we had an interpreter for them, for they do all that they see us 
do, in kneeling before the altars and in crossing themselves at the 
Ave Maria and other prayers. All of them say that they wish 
to be Christians, although they are in truth idolaters ; for in their 
houses are images of many kinds. I have asked them what 
those were, and they answer that they are something Tnrey, which 
means from Heaven. I pretended to wish to throw these things 
in the fire, and the people were so disturbed that they were ready 
to cry ; but in the same way they think that all we have is from 
Heaven, and call it all Tiirey.'''' 

The surgeon's sanguine anticipations as to the rapid re- 
covery of his patients proved unfounded. Not only were 
many more daily added to the long sick-roll, but those who 
had first fallen ill began to die off at a distressing rate. 
Those who were engaged in labors calling for severe bodily 
exertion, such as dressing and carrying stones, working 
on the walls, digging drains, and the like, were the earli- 



TAKING ROOT. II7 

est victims; but the ofificials and people of the better sort 
were soon affected ahnost to the same extent, until the col- 
ony was little more than a huge hospital. The causes which 
conduced to this depressing result are readily enough traced. 
The long confinement on shipboard, scanty rations both of 
food and water, exposure in a new and trying climate with- 
out protection by day or night, change of diet and a contin- 
ued scarcity even of such as they had, absence of proper 
attention and medicines when sick, and a hopelessness born 
of their remoteness from all familiar surroundings, were 
enough to break down men sustained by a firmer faith and 
a loftier ambition than were possessed by the luckless 
hidalgos, soldiers, and artisans of Isabella. A gloomy de- 
spondency seized upon the whole colony, due partly to their 
enfeebled condition and partly to the bitter disappointments 
which their exaggerated expectations had necessarily en- 
tailed. The catastrophe at Navidad had produced an inerad- 
icable impression upon the light-minded followers of the 
Admiral, which had been profoundly augmented by the 
inevitable discovery that the vaunted treasures of the Indies 
were to be acquired only through the medium of sustained 
and laborious effort. Pursuing the one course which true 
wisdom and a loyal regard for the interests both of his sov- 
ereigns and his companions permitted, the Admiral adapted 
his resources to what seemed likely to be the requirements 
of his situation for such period as must elapse before he 
could receive assistance from Spain. He put all alike upon 
a stated ration, from himself down to the lowest laborer. 
He required that all alike should labor to place the town in 
a habitable and defensible condition, for he did not propose 
to have the disaster of Navidad repeated. It made no 
difference whether the objector were royal chamberlain, 
bureau ofificial, tonsured priest, or fiery veteran of Moorish 
and Italian wars; one and all must do something for the 
common good and share a common portion. Such medi- 
cines as were in stock were doled out with careful hand, 
and the small remnant of wine still contained in Vespucci's 
leaky butts was set aside for the use of the invalid and feeble. 
It has never been alleged, either then or since, by the 



Il8 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

belittlers of Columbus — and their number has not de- 
creased with time — that he established one course of life 
for his people and another for himself; nor is there any 
reason to doubt that he was entirely aware of the probable 
consequences of the strict regimen and discipline he felt 
it needful to enforce. None knew better than he, from 
harsh experience, the consuming pride of the Spanish 
nobles, the arrogance of the priesthood, or the intractabil- 
ity of the roving adventurers who formed so large a part of 
his command. But he knew equally well that to yield to 
their murmurings or be moved by their criticisms.was to 
expose all who were with him to quick destruction. If he 
could get his stores into a place of safety, his people under 
shelter, and his town protected by an adequate defence, he 
might hope to worry through until the newly planted fields 
began to bear and the second squadron of caravels prom- 
ised him by their Majesties should arrive. His anxieties 
on all these scores were sufificient, without the additional 
burden of bodily infirmity; but this, too, was laid upon 
him, and in the midst of his manifold labors he had to take 
to his bed with an attack of the prevalent fever. His life- 
long habit of keeping the deck at night, when in strange 
seas or on an unfamiliar coast, had recently cost him dear 
in the loss of indispensable rest, and the unintermitted 
activity and mental stress of the busy days since he first 
saw the peaks of Dominica, more than two months before, 
proved too great a strain upon his exhausted frame. For- 
tunately for all, he was yet able to direct the administra- 
tion of the colony's affairs, and after a short confinement 
regained his accustomed energy. 

Next to the alarming illness of most of his people and 
the loss of so many, the Admiral's greatest distress arose 
from the utter shipwreck of all those expectations which 
he had built upon the garrison of Navidad. It was a 
crushing blow to have to report the effacement of the 
fort and the complete absence of any signs of treasure 
there; but it was almost worse to have to add that, 
beyond the gifts of Guacanagari and the paltry proceeds 
of bartering with the natives around Isabella, no gold 



TAKING ROOT. I 19 

had been secured after two months of stay on the coasts 
of Hispaniola, and no definite knowledge had been gained 
of where it "grew." The return of an empty fleet to 
Spain with such scanty evidence of future wealth, and 
reports so vague on all points save the unhappy condition 
of the colony and the urgent need of further outlay, would, 
the Admiral knew only too well, jeopardize the whole 
future of the enterprise which was, to him, so much more 
than life itself. In choosing for his future city a situation 
near the province of Cibao, he had, indeed, had in view 
an immediate exploration of the much-extolled mines of 
that mountainous region, and cherished the hope that even 
before his unloaded ships returned to Spain he might col- 
lect a considerable quantity of gold; but the sudden and 
widespread sickness of his people frustrated this expecta- 
tion and postponed to the indefinite future its realization. 
Meantime, with the exception of a few vessels which he 
desired to retain for his contemplated voyage in search of 
Terra Firma and the other requirements of the colony, there 
existed no cause for detaining longer in Hispaniola the fleet 
which he had brought out. The cost of each month's delay 
was in itself a heavy item ;^ and, moreover, he owed it both 
to his companions and their Majesties that news of the 
present condition and future prospects of the colony should 
be laid before the sovereigns in time for the prompt de- 
spatch of the supplies and additional men required. He 
therefore directed the preparations to be made for the 
return to Spain of twelve out of the seventeen ships, as 
soon as the progress of the buildings and defences should 
permit their withdrawal without affecting the safety of the 
settlement. While the necessary outfitting and overhaul- 
ing were going on he determined to make a vigorous effort 
to obtain a reliable knowledge of the mines which were so 
consistently reported by the natives to lie in the province of 
Cibao and in Niti, the territory of Caonabo. Both of these 
regions were within easy reach of Isabella, and both were re- 
puted to be fabulously rich in gold. The Admiral was still 

1 From the accounts preserved by Navarrete, it appears that the 
fixed expenses of the colony amounted to about ^75,000 per month. 



I20 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

firm in his conviction that Cibao was the Cipango of Marco 
Polo. The very name of the redoubtable Caonabo was said 
to mean " Golden House," and legends rivalling the later 
myths of El Dorado, the Gilded King, excited some feeble 
interest even among the disanimated colonists. 

Two of the youngest commanders in the expedition were 
chosen for this important and perilous service. Alonso de 
Hojeda was ordered to take fifteen men and make a rapid 
march into the rugged sierras of Cibao, to the westward, 
while Gorvalan, a man of much the same spirit, who had 
won distinction in the Moorish wars, was to push south 
with a similar party into the still less known region of Niti. 
The two detachments left Isabella about the 12th of January 
with instructions to delay no longer than was necessary to 
form an intelligent opinion of the character of the coun- 
try, since any prolonged stay would expose them to the 
danger of an attack by overwhelming forces. On the 20th 
of the month Hojeda returned with those of his men who 
had remained with him, for several had been seized with 
fever while on the way, and had already made their way 
back to the settlement. He reported, in a word, that he 
had reached Cibao and found gold everywhere, both in the 
streams and on their banks; that from more than fifty 
ravines and creeks he had secured gold-bearing sand ; and 
that wherever he had gone in that province the coveted 
metal was so abundant that where a man chose to seek 
he should find it. His journey had not taken him more 
than fifty or sixty miles from Isabella, as his progress had 
been slow, at first, on account of the uninhabited nature of 
the country and consequent want of guidance, and, after- 
wards, because of the embarrassing hospitality of the 
natives. At a distance of some twenty-five miles from the 
colony he had to cross a chain of mountains, and on reach- 
ing its summit had found spread beneath his eyes the glori- 
ous Vega Real, or Royal Plain, which stretched inland from 
Monte Christi and had so charmed the Admiral and his 
companions with its extent and fertility when they had 
anchored in that port, both on this and the previous voyage. 
Descending into the vast plain, Hojeda found it dotted 



TAKING ROOT. 121 

with Indian settlements, the inhabitants of which received 
him and his escort "as if they were angels," and treated 
them with the frankness and liberality of brothers. Once 
across this inviting prairie country, the Spaniards entered 
the mountainous region of Cibao proper. Here the Indians 
vied with one another in pointing out to their visitors the 
riches of the soil, picking out grains of gold from the sand 
of the streams and scratching the surface of the adjoining 
soil to show that the metal, as it were, permeated the 
ground in every direction. Supplied with a goodly quan- 
tity of gold both fine and coarse, and with a nugget of nine 
ounces' weight, which he had himself picked out of a river- 
bed, Hojeda retraced his way to Isabella. In so doing 
he crossed the second time a broad river winding through 
the Vega, which the natives called Yaqui. It was not until 
a much later date that the identity of this with the Rio de 
Oro, emptying into the bay at Monte Christi, was estab- 
lished. As a matter of fact, quite unknown to himself or 
his command, Hojeda had penetrated into the same dis- 
trict where, the year before, Martin Alonzo Pinzon had 
obtained so much gold and so many Indian slaves before 
he had been overtaken and called to account by his 
deserted Admiral. 

The news of Hojeda's success, confirmed by the exhibi- 
tion of his glittering trophies, did more to rally the spirits 
of the disheartened colonists than anything which could have 
happened, short of a return to Spain. The Admiral, more 
than all, was gratified and encouraged, not alone because of 
the corroboration thus given to the accounts so constantly 
received from the natives as to the extraordinary plenty of 
gold in Cibao, but also because the Indians of that district 
had shown themselves to be peaceable and helpful. Under 
these conditions, the wisdom of his choice of a site for the 
new city was amply demonstrated, and he might look for- 
ward with confidence to obtaining, by methodical exertions, 
enough of the precious metal to reimburse their Majesties, 
within a short time, for all the outlays of the expedition, 
and establish, once for all, the value of the Indies, and 
particularly of this long-sought Cipango, to the Crown. His 



122 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

content was still further augmented when, on the very next 
day, January 21st, Gorvalan returned from his expedition 
into the territory of Caonabo. His report was also of gold 
found in quantity in three or four districts, and he produced 
in turn his contributions to the already important stock 
of treasure. With this supplement to Hojeda's story, the 
Admiral felt that he might allay to some degree the impa- 
tience and disappointment of his sovereigns when they 
should learn of the failure of his and their sanguine expec- 
tations concerning the men of Navidad. He accordingly 
redoubled his efforts to despatch the homeward-bound fleet, 
and planned, as soon as it was departed, to visit in person 
the mines of Cibao and provide for a systematic collection 
of their riches, and the adequate defence of those engaged 
in the task. He wished, he says, to see this natural treas- 
ure-house with his own eyes, and give, to all the others who, 
like so many St. Thomases, should see and touch it, cause 
to believe in its reality. No large number of his followers, 
apparently, required such material demonstration, if we 
may accept the confidence of Dr. Chanca as representative; 
for the mere sight of the heavy yellow grains and nuggets 
had revived, at least momentarily, in the most despondent, 
some portion of the hopes which had beaten so high when 
they first came in sight of the Haytian mountains. " Their 
Majesties, our sovereigns," reports the surgeon, apropos of 
Hojeda and Gorvalan, "may assuredly from henceforth call 
themselves the richest and most prosperous princes of the 
world, for never before has any one seen or heard of such a 
thing; for beyond question when the ships return here on 
their next voyage they may carry back with them so great 
a quantity of gold that whoever knows of it will be aston- 
ished." 

During the remaining days of the month the Admiral 
busied himself with the present requirements of the colony 
and with preparing his despatches, reports, and recom- 
mendations for his royal patrons. Looking with some 
anxiety at the freedom with which the natives came and 
went in his infant town, and realizing how exposed it would 
be in the event of any combined attempt to destroy it, he 



TAKING ROOT. 



123 



devoted particular attention to the completion of the stone 
fortress and storehouses. In anticipation of his proposed 
expedition into Cibao, he set a force to work opening com- 
munication in that direction, at least for a short distance 
out of Isabella, where there were several streams to cross. 
He took some comfort from the fact that his people began 
to show a slight improvement in health, and he caused those 
who seemed least disposed to rally to be set apart for return 
to Spain on the fleet. From his ofificers and lieutenants 
he sought to learn all that they thought the future welfare of 
the colony demanded, and incorporated their views with his 
own in drawing up his reports to the King and Queen. He 
detached from his service some of those whose presence at 
the Court he thought would tend to a better comprehension 
of the situation and prospects of his colony, and encouraged 
all those who so desired to send home their own accounts 
of their experiences. So great was his confidence that the 
recent gloom would be followed by exultation, as the result 
of bringing the treasures of Cibao into active exploitation, 
and that the opening up of the mainland of Asia with all its 
vast opulence would be the early sequel of the pacific sub- 
jugation of Hispaniola, that he made no attempt either on 
his own or his companions' account to suppress or distort 
the exact truth. It was not needful to do so, in his opin- 
ion. The difficulties, distress, and disappointments of the 
past month or six weeks were distinctly traceable to rank 
disobedience of his orders and defiance of his delegated 
authority. Had the garrison of Navidad followed his injunc- 
tions, there would have been treasure to remit home, a mass 
of information collected concerning the country and its 
people, and relations of confidence and profit established 
with all the native tribes. That none of these things had 
been done was not due to his remissness, and he saw no 
reason for concealment. 

The five vessels which he proposed to retain at Isabella 
were the "Gallega," the "Maria Galante," and three cara- 
vels, — the historic "Nifia," the "San Juan," and the "Cor- 
dera." This squadron he destined partly for the defence of 
the colony, in the emergency of any Portuguese force unex- 



124 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

pectedly appearing, partly for a means of reaching Spain, 
sliould occasion arise, and partly for the investigation he 
proposed making as to whether Cuba were an island or the 
mainland of Asia. The remaining twelve ships he put under 
the command of Antonio de Torres for the return voyage. 
On these were shipped the Carib prisoners, both men and 
women, and some other Indians; such quantity of gums, 
barks, woods, cotton, and other valuable commodities as it 
had been possible to gather; specimens of the native foods, 
— maize, ages, peppers, and the like; the birds and animals 
which offered the greatest contrast with those of Europe; 
and, finally, a collection of the weapons, implements, and 
ornaments used by the various tribes of Hispaniola and the 
Caribbees.^ The presents of golden masks and native gold 
received from Guacanagari and in barter with the natives 
were to be sent to their Majesties by the hand of Torres him- 
self, as was also the gold collected by Hojeda and Gorvalan. 
With these ships a large number of men returned to Spain ; 
exactly how many is not stated, but it would appear that 
there must have been quite 500. Among them were some 
of the better sort who had been invalided, and we note, with 
a certain amusement, that the valorous Don Melchior Mal- 
donado had already acquired all the Indian experience he 
cared for and took advantage of their Majesties' permission 
to return to Spain by the first conveyance. Prior to the 
sailing of the fleet the Admiral, on January 29th, held a 
muster of such of his force as were able to appear for duty. 
To judge by what he says in his report to their Majesties, it 
was a sorry lot of men and beasts who faced their commander 
on the savannah at Isabella. The greater part of his forces 
was suffering in some degree from the malarial fever which 
was so prevalent, and even the soldiers who had enjoyed a 
change of air and scene with Hojeda and Gorvalan, had 
fallen victims to the insidious malady. Notwithstanding 
this, a better spirit prevailed among most of the people, due 

^ Dr. Chanca observed that the Indians around Isabella " possess 
many implements, such as hatchets and adzes, made of stone, so neat 
and well fashioned that it is astonishing how they could be made 
without iron." 



TAKING ROOT. 



125 



in part to the fact that the fever had assumed a less violent 
form, and deaths from it were now comparatively rare, and 
in part to the renewal of ambition resulting from the bril- 
liant expectations of gain held out by the expeditions into 
Cibao and Niti. Under the circumstances the Admiral felt 
disposed to take a hopeful view of his situation, and to look 
upon the crisis of his enterprise as being successfully passed. 
The homeward-bound fleet got under weigh on Sunday, 
the 2nd of February, passing out of the harbor of Isabella 
and steering an easterly course for Cape Enamorado, or 
Cabron, as we now call it. It was the Admiral's expecta- 
tion that, if ships had not already sailed from Cadiz before 
Torres' s arrival, they would be despatched immediately 
thereafter; so that not later than May or June the colonists 
might hope to welcome new friends and receive fresh and 
ample supplies. 




VII. 

THE VICEROY'S FIRST REPORT. 

COLUMBUS gave to Antonio de Torres, who com- 
manded the returning fleet, a bundle of despatches 
which were to be delivered into their Majesties' 
own hands. Torres took also, with his commander's 
knowledge and assent, the letters written by Fray Boil, 
the treasurer Villacorta, and such other officials as felt 
themselves authorized to address the King and Queen 
directly. The packet with which he was charged by the 
Admiral contained a report of the outward voyage and 
the occurrences at Navidad, several lists of supplies and 
materials urgently required by the colony, some letters 
recounting " all that has been done here since our arrival, 
and this in very great detail and at much length," other 
letters of recommendation and information, a confidential 
account of certain insubordinate conduct on the part of 
Bernal de Pisa and some colonists who abetted him, and, 
chief of all, that " Memorial " which has furnished the 
Admiral's censors with so much material for their vehement 
denunciations. None of these documents have come down 
to us in their entirety except the last named. From the 
replies of Ferdinand and Isabella and scattered references 
in the pages of Navarrete, Las Casas, Bernaldez, and others, 
we can reconstruct the contents of the others to some ex- 
tent; but the "Memorial" is the one which has reached us 
intact, and as such it has served as the text for a criticism 
of Columbus as sweeping as it is intemperate and, we 
believe, unjust. 
126 



THE VICEROY'S FIRST REPORT. 12/ 

It is not fair to judge a man, be he living to-day or 
dust for four centuries, by paraphrase and summary. It is 
still less reasonable to condemn him upon one clause 
picked out of a long document, written in the hurry and 
distraction of such surroundings as those which encom- 
passed Columbus when he penned the paper to which we 
refer. Without inflicting upon our readers those portions 
which concern matters of routine, salaries to officials, dis- 
cussion of details of equipment, and so on, we propose to 
lay before them, in the Admiral's own words, the essential 
parts of this first report from an American settlement. By 
so doing we hope to enable them to see somewhat of the 
workings of its author's mind, that they may be in a posi- 
tion to bestow censure, or withhold it, in accordance with the 
facts as they stand recorded. Nothing that we can write 
will convey so graphically the situation of Columbus and 
the motives which were guiding his conduct as this ex- 
tremely unpolished state paper. It is dated the 30th of 
January, the day after the Admiral reviewed his feeble 
array, and begins thus : — 

"That which you, Antonio de Torres, captain of the ship 
'Maria Galante ' and Mayor of the City of Isabella, are to 
say to and ask from the King and Queen, our sovereigns, 
on my behalf, is the following: " First of all Torres was 
directed to kiss the royal feet and hands and present to 
their Majesties the Admiral's humble duty, with such ex- 
pressions of devotion as he, Torres, knew to be in con- 
sonance with his leader's life and sentiments. Then, 
notwithstanding the extended letters which Fray Boil, the 
treasurer, and the Admiral himself were forwarding by the 
same hands, Torres was to 

" Say to their Highnesses, as from me, that it has pleased God 
to grant me such favor in their sei^vice that thus far neither have 
I found [here], nor has there been otherwise found, in any 
respect, anything less than what I wrote, said, and affirmed to 
their Majesties in the past ; rather by God's grace do I believe 
that even much more will plainly and very quickly appear from 
the results. In the matter of spices, merely, on the borders of 
the sea, without having gone far inland, such indications and 



128 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

beginnings are found as to warrant the hope of a far better 
conclusion. The same may be said of the mines of gold; for 
although only two of our men set out to explore, each one 
following his own path and not delaying because each had few 
companions, so many rivers have been discovered so abounding 
in gold that all those who saw and gathered it — merely with their 
hands, as a sample — returned so overjoyed and relate such tales 
of its profusion that I have some hesitation in saying and writing 
them to your Majesties." 

One of these explorers, Gorvalan, he adds, accompanies 
Torres "to tell what he saw"; ^ the other, Hojeda, remains 
with the colony, "although beyond all doubt and com- 
parison he discovered far more, according to the note of 
the rivers which he brought back, in each of which he says 
there is more gold than can be believed." Wherefore, the 
Admiral adds, their Majesties "may give thanks to God, 
since all their affairs are progressing thus favorably." 

" You are also to say to their Majesties," he continues, 
" although it has already been written, that I greatly desired to 
be able to send them by this fleet a greater quantity of the gold 
which we expect to gather here, if most of our people who are 
here had not suddenly fallen ill. But this I have not been able 
to do, as the fleet cannot longer remain here, both because of the 
heavy cost it entails and because the season is favorable for it to 
go to Spain and for the return of the ships which are to bring us 
the supplies so badly needed ; for if those which are to come 
back should defer setting sail they would not be able to reach 
here by May. Moreover, if I should undertake to visit the mines 
or rivers now with such of my people as are well, both on the 
ships in the harbor and in the town on shore, there would be 
many difficulties and even perils, for they are distant about 
twenty or twenty-five leagues from here, with many mountain 
passes and rivers to cross, and in order to provide for the long 
journey and for remaining there long enough to collect the gold, 
it would be necessary to carry a large supply of provisions. 
These could not be taken on our men's backs, and there are no 
animals which could serve for the purpose, nor are the roads 
and paths adapted to such work, although a beginning has been 
made towards making them passable. It was also a great imped- 

1 Las Casas affirms, however, that Gorvalan finally did not go with 
Torres, and quotes a later letter of Columbus as his authority. 



THE VICEROY'S FIRST REPORT. 



129 



iment that our sick, as well as the provisions and supplies which 
are landed, should be left in cabins in an undefended situation, 
for although these Indians have shown themselves towards the 
explorers and each day show themselves here to be very harm- 
less and free from evil, it nevertheless did not seem to be the 
part of prudence, since they daily come among us, to expose our 
sick people and supplies to the risk and chance of destruction. 
A single Indian with an ember might bring this about, by setting 
fire to the huts, for they are coming and going by day and night, 
and for this reason we have guards about the neighborhood as 
long as the settlement is open and defenceless. 

" Furthermore," the Admiral wrote, continuing his reasons for 
not sending more gold to Spain at this time, " as we have seen 
that most of those who went exploring into the interior fell sick 
upon their return, — and some even had to come back while 
upon the road, — there was also ground for fearing that the same 
would befall those of our well people who should now set out. 
From this two dangers would arise ; first, that our men should 
be ill there, where there is no shelter and no protection whatever 
from that cacique they call Caonabo, — who is, according to all 
accounts, a very bad man and the boldest of them all, — who, 
seeing us thus disabled and feeble, might be able to attempt that 
which he would not dare if we were sound. The same cause 
gives rise to the second diificulty, that of bringing here the gold 
which we secured ; for either we should have to take little and 
go backward and forward each day, and thus expose ourselves to 
the risk of sickness, or we should have to send with it part of 
our force, with the same danger of loss. 

" Therefore, you are to say to their Highnesses that these 
are the reasons why the fleet has not been detained at this time, 
and why no gold is sent except the samples. However, putting 
our faith in God, who through all and in all has guided us thus 
far, these people will soon recover, as they already begin to, for 
the climate is merely trying them with certain agues, and they 
quickly get about. It is evident that if they had a little fresh 
meat to aid their convalescence they would all very soon be 
afoot, with God's help, and indeed most of them would be re- 
established by now ; notwithstanding which lack they will in 
good season recover. The few healthy men who are left busy 
themselves each day in enclosing the town and putting it and 
the supplies in some sort of security, which will be accomplished 
in a short time, since nothing is required except barricades, for 
the Indians are not the kind of people to attack us unless they 
should find us asleep, even if they should think of such a thing. 

9 



I30 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Thus they did to the others who remained here [at Navidad], 
by reason of their carelessness ; for, however few our men were 
and how mucli soever occasion they gave the Indians to have 
and to do all they did, they would never have dared to attempt 
injuring our people if they had seen the latter to be on their 
guard. As soon as this work is completed we shall arrange to 
go to the above-mentioned rivers ; either taking the road from 
here and seeking the best means available, or coasting by sea 
along the island to that place which, they say, is not more than 
six or seven leagues distant from the rivers. In this manner we 
shall be able to collect the gold in safety and place it under the 
protection of some fort or tower which shall be built there at 
once, so that it will be gathered by the time the two caravels 
return hither and shipped in security at the first opportunity 
which offers to make the voyage home. 

" You are also to say to their Highnesses, as has before been 
said, that the cause of the sickness, so general among all here, 
is the change of water and air, for we observe that all are affected 
in turn, but few dangerously. For this reason the preservation 
of their health, next to God, lies in their having the food to 
which they were used in Spain, for neither by these men nor by 
those men who may arrive in the future can their Majesties be 
served, if they be not sound. Such provision must continue 
until that which has been sown and planted here shall bear seed ; 
for example, wheat, barley, and vines, with which thus far in the 
present year little has been done, because we could not sooner 
settle down, and as soon as we did so the few laborers who were 
with us fell sick. Even had they remained well they had so few 
beasts, and those so weak and lean, that they could have helped 
but little. Notwithstanding, some sowing has been done, rather 
to test the ground, which seems to be astonishingly fertile, than 
because any assistance was expected therefrom for our needs. 
We are well assured, as the result will show, that in this country 
both wheat and wine will be readily produced, but we must 
await their yield, which, if it is equal to what the rapid growth 
of wheat indicates, from a very few seeds which were planted, 
certainly will not cause either Andalusia or Sicily to be missed 
here. So it is with sugar-cane, judging from the manner in 
which a few cuttings which were planted have grown ; for beyond 
question the quality of the land in these islands is such, whether 
in the mountains, sierras, and streams, or in the plains with their 
copious rivers, that no other country which the sun warms can 
be better in appearance or more beautiful." 



THE VICEROY'S FIRST REPORT. 131 

The Admiral then instructs Torres as to the complaint 
he is to make concerning the careless work of the Seville 
coopers, whereby the greater part of the wine — so essen- 
tial to the life of all classes of people in Southern Europe 
— was wasted on the voyage, and also refers to the poor 
quality of the salted meats furnished the fleet. He charges 
his messenger to see that an abundance of these articles, as 
well as biscuit and wheat, are provided; " for the way is long 
and a supply cannot every day be obtained." "There is 
need," he adds, "of sheep, or, what is better, lambs, — 
more ewes than rams, — and also some calves and heifers, 
which may come in any caravel that is sent here, and also 
some asses, male and female, and mares for work and breed- 
ing; for here are none of these animals which a man can 
use or avail himself of." With a prudence born of long 
waiting upon the dilatory methods of the Court, he provides 
for the purchase of all these needed supplies out of the gold 
he forwards by Torres. The latter is to deposit it, if nec- 
essary, in pledge with some merchant of Seville and with 
the advances thus secured make the payments direct, "be- 
cause I fear," writes the Admiral, "that their Majesties may 
not be in Seville and neither their officers nor ministers be 
willing to make the necessary provision, without express 
authorization, for what it is necessary should come by the 
first conveyance; so that in the asking and receiving of 
instructions the time should pass for the sailing of those 
ships which should reach here in the month of May." 
Mindful of the welfare of his colony, and conscious of the 
hardships awaiting them and the embarrassments sure to 
accrue to himself during the three or four months of short 
rations and isolation which must elapse before other vessels 
arrive from Spain, he reiterates that " it is desirable that 
everything possible be done to have the caravels return 
some time in the month of May, so that our people before 
entering upon the summer season may see and have some 
benefit from these things, and especially on account of their 
sickness. Of some of them we already have great want, 
such as raisins, sugar, almonds, molasses, and rice, of which 
a great quantity should have come, but in fact only a little 



132 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

came, and that which was brought is already used and con- 
sumed, as well as most of the medicines, by reason of the 
large number of sick." Torres was furnished with complete 
lists of everything required, "as well for the sound as for 
the sick," and was to send out by the first ships as much as 
he could procure money for, sending the rest later on, as he 
should arrange with their Majesties. 

Thus far in this famous Memorial we fail to see cause for 
criticism or censure. We are told, by the latest and ablest 
of his censors, that, upon the return of Hojeda, "there was 
now material to give spirit to the despatch to his sovereigns, 
and Columbus sat down to write it." As a matter of fact 
the Memorial was, as we have seen, a memorandum ad- 
dressed to Torres, not to their Majesties, and was to be 
followed by him in making his report to them ; it was only 
one of many documents forwarded by the Admiral to the 
King and Queen; it was not written until January 30th, 
whereas Hojeda returned on the 20th and Gorvalan on the 
2ist; there was no lack of material for a "spirited, de- 
spatch " before their arrival, and no particular motive for 
extraordinary epistolary exertion thereafter; it covered all 
sorts and kinds of affairs, in the treatment of many of 
which it was anything rather than "spirited"; and of the 
515 lines which it contains, as it "is printed in Navarrete's 
collection," to quote the brilliant censor again, just 35 
are occupied with any reference, however remote, to the 
explorations which are alleged to have been its inspiring 
motive. 

Columbus did dwell with sanguine enthusiasm upon the 
prospects of a golden revenue from the rivers and mines of 
Cibao, but it was because he knew this to be the matter of 
the most immediate moment to his royal master and mis- 
tress, as it was to himself ; for he was keenly impressed with 
the burdensome charge of his expedition upon the coffers 
of the Crown and equally alive to the disappointment which 
was sure to result from the complete collapse of all the 
expectations concerning the treasures supposed to be wait- 
ing his arrival at Navidad. The future more than justified 
even his hopeful view of the mineral resources of Hispani- 



THE VICEROY'S FIRST REPORT. 133 

ola, and in assuring his sovereigns of large and, as he 
believed, immediate returns from this, their first colony, 
he was performing his plain official duty. There was no 
lack of other witnesses than Torres and Gorvalan on the 
returning ships to contradict their statements should they 
attempt to romance, and no want of correspondence other 
than that of the Admiral to disprove his assertions, should 
they be unfounded or untrue. For the rest, so far as our 
feeble lights enable us to discern, the paper thus far quoted 
indicates that its author was a prudent and humane com- 
mander, an energetic and courageous leader, and a loyal 
servant to the Crown. Situated as he was, confronted by 
unexpected disaster at the very outset of his undertaking, 
forced to change abruptly all his plans in order to meet 
the altered conditions consequent upon the destruction of 
the pioneer settlement which he had founded at Navidad, 
and aware of the great expectations nourished in Spain con- 
cerning this returning fleet, the instructions given to Torres 
seem to us to be reasonable and wise. If, instead of com- 
ing from the hand of Christopher Columbus, this Memorial 
were the work of the chief of some colonizing and exploring 
expedition in the Congo Basin or East Africa, it would be 
read with sympathetic interest and appreciation. In what 
respect has this dead and gone forerunner of civilization's 
later heroes forfeited his title to a like consideration? The 
next clauses of his Memorial supply, perhaps, an answer, 
even if an insufficient one; for they have furnished the text 
for most of the angry and contemptuous strictures with 
which it is now becoming the fashion to atone for the four 
centuries of admiration lavished by a deluded humanity 
upon an unworthy object. 

" Item. You are to say to their Highnesses," proceeded the 
Admiral, " that because there is here no interpreter through 
whom our holy faith can be made intelligible to these natives, as 
their Highnesses desire and as do we who are here, — and we 
shall labor in this as much as is possible, — by these ships are 
now being sent some of the Cannibals, men, women, boys, and 
girls, whom their Majesties can direct to be placed in charge of 
persons with whom they can best learn our language. They 



134 ^^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

should be exercised in matters of utility, and little by little orders 
be given that somewhat more care be taken with them than with 
other slaves, so that some of them may learn from the others, 
not seeing or speaking with each other until much later on, for 
so they will learn more quickly there than here and be better 
interpreters, although we shall not cease to do here what is 
possible as well. It is true that, as among these people those 
of one island have little intercourse with those of another, there 
is some difference of dialects, according as they may be nearer 
or more remote ; and because, of all the islands, those of the 
Cannibals are very large and well peopled, it will cause here only 
a good impression to take some of their men and women and 
send them to Spain, so that once and for all they should be 
cured of that unnatural custom which they have of eating human 
flesh, and, learning the language in Spain, receive Baptism much 
sooner and gain the profit to their souls. Even among such of 
these people who have not the same customs great credit would 
be secured by ourselves, when they see us seizing and imprison- 
ing those from whom they were accustomed to suffer harm, and 
of whom they have such fear that they are frightened by a single 
man. You may also assure their Highnesses that the arrival and 
sight of this fleet, thus assembled and imposing, in this country 
has given much influence to the colony and greater security for 
the future ; for all the people of this huge island and of the 
others, observing the kind treatment which will be shown to 
the well-disposed and the punishment which will be done to the 
evil, will promptly reach a condition of obedience so that they 
may be governed as vassals of their Highnesses. Even now, 
wherever one of our men may be, they not only do whatever he 
wishes, but of their own free will endeavor to do all that they 
think would give us pleasure. Their Highnesses may also rest 
satisfied that not less in Europe, among Christian princes, the 
coming of this fleet will have given them a great fame for many 
reasons, which their Highnesses will be better able to imagine 
and understand than I know how to say. 

" Item. You are also to say to their Highnesses that the 
welfare of the souls of the said Cannibals and also of the natives 
of this place has suggested the thought that the more who 
should be carried to Spain the better it would be, and thereby 
their Highnesses be served in the following manner : That in 
view of how great is the need of cattle and beasts of burden for 
the maintenance of the people who are to be here, and for the 
good of all these islands, their Highnesses can give license and 
authority to a sufficient number of caravels to come out here 



THE VICEROY'S FIRST REPORT. 135 

each year and bring the said cattle and other supplies and arti- 
cles for peopling the country and improving the land, and this 
at reasonable prices and for account of the people who should 
bring them. These commodities could be paid for in slaves from 
among these Cannibals ; a people haughty and froward, well built 
and of a very good understanding, who, being weaned from that 
inhuman habit, we believe will be better than any other slaves, 
and that habit they will soon lose as soon as they are away from 
their own country. Many of these men can be secured with the 
galleys which the people here know how to make, it being under- 
stood that their Highnesses should place a person of their confi- 
dence on each of the caravels which may come out, who shall 
prevent the caravels from making a landing at any other part of 
the island except here, where the lading and unlading of all the 
merchandise should be effected. Of these slaves also which 
should be brought, their Highnesses could receive their propor- 
tion in Spain. 

" On this point you are to bring or send an answer, so that 
the needful preparations may be made with the greater assurance, 
if to their Highnesses it should seem well." 

Having made, quite as a matter of course, this sugges- 
tion for relieving their Majesties' depleted treasury of 
some part of the heavy expenses entailed by his enterprise, 
the Admiral recommends that in the future the caravels 
sent out to the Indies be chartered by the ton, after the 
Flemish style, rather than by the clumsy one of a monthly 
rental. He then announces that he has decided to pur- 
chase and retain at Isabella two of the carracks, and three 
of the caravels. He has been moved to do this, he adds, 
because "these ships will not only give authority and 
security to the people who have to go inland to arrange 
with the Indians for collecting the gold, but also in the 
event of any other danger which might arise from foreign 
nations; besides this, the caravels are necessary for dis- 
covering the mainland and the other islands which lie 
between here [Hispaniola] and there [Spain]." The allu- 
sion to foreigners indicates that he either still felt some 
apprehension lest the Portuguese might follow him into 
these remote seas, or that he was thinking of the great 
ships of the merchant princes of which he fancied his in- 



136 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

terpreters had told him as he sailed along the coasts of 
Cuba the year before. 

"Item," continues the Memorial. "You are to say to their 
Highnesses and entreat them on my belialf in tlie most humble 
manner possible, that they may be pleased to attend especially 
to that which they shall learn more minutely, from the letters 
and documents, affects the peace and quiet and concord of those 
who remain here ; that for the affairs of their Majesties' service 
they choose such persons that they need have no fear concerning 
them, who will regard rather the purpose for which they are sent 
than their individual interests. As to this matter, since you 
have seen and know everything, you are to speak and say to 
their Majesties the truth of all things as you have understood it, 
and see that the course which they may direct to be taken is 
communicated by the first vessels, if possible, so that no scandal 
may occur here in a matter which so nearly concerns the good of 
their Majesties' service." 

This plain reference to Bernal de Pisa and his fellow 
malcontents indicates the extent of discord which had 
already arisen between the Admiral and some of the Crown 
officials, and the serious consequences which, in his opin- 
ion, would result from its continuance. Later on we shall 
see the King and Queen promising to make amends for the 
heedlessness with which some of their appointments were 
made; meantime, their Viceroy surely cannot be accused 
of a lack either of energy or frankness in his efforts to free 
his government from this fruitful source of evil. 

The clauses which immediately follow are devoted to the 
commendation of deserving officers. Torres as alcayde, or 
mayor, of Isabella was to describe its situation to their 
Majesties and the beauty of the surrounding country, and 
to ask their confirmation of the appointment bestowed upon 
him by the Admiral in partial recognition of faithful ser- 
vice. He was also to recommend to the consideration of 
the sovereigns Pedro Margarite, Caspar, and Beltran, as 
deserving some special reward, and was particularly to say 
how Juan Aguado, the Queen's proteg^, had "well and 
diligently served in all that he was ordered to do." It 
would have been better for the Admiral had both his com- 



THE VICEROY'S FIRST REPORT. 137 

mendations and their subjects, so far as these men were 
concerned, gone to the bottom of the Atlantic. Torres 
was also to inform their Majesties "the task which Dr. 
Chanca has had with the care of so many sick and the lack 
of supplies, and how, notwithstanding all, he has borne 
himself with exemplary diligence and self-sacrifice in all 
that relates to his duties " ; in recognition of which the 
Admiral suggested that the Doctor be allowed such special 
gratuities as were usually granted to army surgeons in 
active campaigning. Two other officers, Coronel and the 
lawyer Gil Garcia, are also mentioned with approbation 
and a fitting reward asked for them. 

Then the Admiral reverts to the all-absorbing question 
of revenue. 

" Item. You are to say to their Highnesses (although I have 
already written it in the letters) that I do not believe it will be 
possible to undertake any voyage of discovery this year, until 
this business of the golden rivers which have been found is pro- 
vided for, as the advantage of their Majesties' service demands. 
This done, the voyage can be much better made ; for it is not an 
affair which without my presence can be attended to by any one 
else to my liking or to their Majesties' benefit, however well it 
may be done ; as all is doubtful except what a man attends to 
himself." 

Torres is next to explain the deception practised in the 
exchange of horses at Seville, and lay the responsibility 
for the same at Soria's door. Then he is to show that 
more than 200 men had hidden themselves on the vessels 
and made the voyage without any provision for their pay 
or maintenance, and to ask that they be allowed to take 
the places of those regularly enrolled who had returned or 
been incapacitated. In the Admiral's opinion at least 
1000 men should constitute the effective strength of the 
colony for the first three years; of these it would be well 
to have 100 mounted, but this would be expensive and 
could wait until the gold sent to their Majesties should 
provide ample means. 

Following this is a suggestion which, although it comes 
from " the man who was so anxious to become the first slave- 



138 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

driver in America," sounds strangely like the deliverances 
of the intelligent head of an industrial colony. 

" Item. Inasmuch as the cost of this colony may be to some 
extent lightened by industry and the methods practised by other 
princes under similar conditions, more easily than it can be cur- 
tailed here, it seems well that, besides the commodities intended 
for general consumption and medicinal stores, the ships should 
bring out shoes, and hides for making them, shirts both common 
and fine, jackets, linen, skirts, trousers, cloths for clothing of a 
reasonable price, and other things, such as preserves, which are 
outside the usual rations and helpful for the maintenance of 
health. All these things will be gladly accepted by the people 
here on account of their wages, and if the purchases be made 
in Spain by faithful officers who consider only their Majesties' 
service, some advantage may be derived." 

If Columbus proposed that slaves should work, he did not 
intend that his own people should stand by in idleness. 

Torres is next instructed to bring to their Majesties' atten- 
tion the trickeries practised by the men-at-arms, in exchang- 
ing their good arms for poor ones, and to ask that two 
hundred cuirasses, one hundred guns, and one hundred 
cross-bows, with their corresponding ammunition, be sent 
out. He is also charged so to adjust the salaries of some 
of the officers that their families should receive a part in 
Spain. The succeeding clause is devoted to providing for 
the physical comfort of the colonists. 

" It would be very well," the Admiral writes, " that fifty hogs- 
heads of molasses be procured from the island of Madeira, for 
it is the best and healthiest nourishment in the world and does 
not usually cost more than two ducats the hogshead, exclusive 
of the casks, and if their Highnesses order some caravel to pass 
by there on the outward voyage this purchase can be made, as 
also ten boxes of sugar, of which there is much need. This is 
the best season of the year — that is, between now and April — 
for finding it and getting it at a fair price." 

A final reference to the prospects of securing a revenue 
follows. 

" Item. You are to say to their Majesties that, although 
these rivers contain the quantity of gold which those who have 



THE VICEROY'S FIRST REPORT. 139 

seen them allege, it is certain that the gold is not generated in 
the rivers but in the earth, and that the water coming in contact 
with the mines brings down the metal mingled with its sands. 
Although some of these rivers which have been discovered are 
quite large, others are so small that they are rather brooks than 
rivers, which do not carry more than two fingers' depth of water 
and can be easily traced to their fountain-head ; so that it will 
not only be profitable for the washers to gather the gold from 
the sands but also for others to dig for it in the earth, where it 
will be more especially found in larger quantity. For this reason 
it will be well for their Majesties to send out some washers, 
from among those who work in the mines of Almaden, so that 
in one manner and the other the work may proceed. Mean- 
while we shall not wait for them, for with the washers who are 
now here we hope, with God's aid, once the people are well, to 
obtain a handsome contribution of gold for the next caravels 
which shall sail." 

In the succeeding paragraph the royal treasurer, Villa- 
corta, is recommended for promotion, and Torres told to 
see that this be done " in such a way that Villacorta shall 
know by the result that what he has done for me in that 
which I required from him has brought him advantage." 
A final clause reverts to Margarite, Caspar, and Beltran, 
and the other captains of caravels who remained at Isabella 
and who by the return of their vessels were left without 
stated compensation. " You are to request their Highnesses 
on my behalf to fix that which these men are to receive in 
each year or by the month, as their Majesties may see fit. 
Done in this city of Isabella the 30th day of January, 1494." 
So ends the Memorial. 

At the risk of wearying our readers we have translated, 
as closely as the rude and involved sentences of the original 
permitted, all that is of interest in this historic document. 
It exhibits with photographic fidelity the mind of its author 
as he sat amid the confusion of his growing town, with dis- 
appointment and disaster behind him and a doubtful future 
to face. Primarily intended, as we have seen, for the 
guidance of Torres, it was to be left (and was so left) with 
Ferdinand and Isabella as a memorandum or summary of 
the several matters discussed at greater length in other letters 



I40 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

and despatches. No attempt was made to deceive the sov- 
ereigns, for no deception was possible ; and no effort was 
made to make of it a forcible and elegant document, for it 
professed to be nothing but a string of isolated notes, jotted 
down as the subjects presented themselves to the writer's 
thoughts. Such as it was we have given it. 

Slavery is as much of an anachronism to-day as are the 
wheel and the rack. Neither eloquence nor logic is longer 
necessary to prove the right of every human being to that 
liberty with which Nature endows him. We of the United 
States have peculiar cause to appreciate both the iniquity of 
the institution and the fact that a sincere belief in its justi- 
fiability is not incompatible with moral integrity. Our his- 
tory is that of a people who, from their establishment on 
American soil, tolerated slavery as frankly as they did free- 
dom of speech and religion. To its inherently vile methods 
we owe no small part of our national grandeur. When we 
sit in judgment, therefore, on others who thought as our 
own people thought until yesterday, and who had the suffi- 
cient excuse that they lived four centuries before the days 
of Garrison and Sumner, it behooves us to show some slight 
moderation. Sir Arthur Helps only states the truth when 
he says, in his oft-quoted passage, that "a more distinct 
suggestion for the establishment of a slave trade was never 
proposed " than that which Columbus makes to his sover- 
eigns in this Memorial. It was meant to be distinct, for it 
was a deliberate suggestion submitted by their Viceroy to 
Ferdinand and Isabella for their royal consideration and 
decision. Every historian, from Las Casas to the present 
day, is justified in exclaiming against the iniquity of slavery 
as such. But in saying that, after penning the words which 
we have above translated, " the man who was ambitious to 
become the first slave driver of the New World laid down his 
quill praising God, as he asked his sovereigns to do," the 
more modern and learned critic who thus emphatically vents 
his righteous indignation is attempting a tour deforce, in his 
anxiety to carry his readers with him, scarcely less violent 
than that advocated by the subject of his criticism. Colum- 
bus no more cherished such an ambition than did those God- 



THE VICEROY'S FIRST REPORT. 141 

fearing and stalwart Puritans who, one hundred and fifty 
years later, so willingly converted into household slaves the 
unregenerate Narragansetts and Nipmucks who fell into 
their hands as the prize of an unequal war. We are informed 
that this is special pleading, that "therein rests the pitiful 
plea for Columbus, the originator of American slavery." 
As a matter of fact, Columbus was not the originator of 
American slavery, or of any other. He found the vicious 
system as flourishing in the New World as he had left it in 
the Old. In opening communication between the two, he 
provided a means for exchanging the merchandise of one 
for the slaves of the other, as well as beads for cotton, or 
hawk-bells for gold-dust. He considered the cannibals to 
be enemies of humanity at large, assignable to the same 
category as heretics, Jews, or Moors. As such they were 
subject to extermination or captivity, as their Christian 
adversaries might determine. 

The whole proceeding was, to him, regular, even com- 
mendable, so far as its morality was concerned; for the cap- 
tives would be proselytized and enter the Church's fold. In 
this respect Columbus did not rise above the accepted 
dogmas of his age ; in others he did. He was great in so 
far as he led his times, but he was not little in being other- 
wise a part of them. To heap anathemas at this late day 
upon his head because, four centuries ago, he did not carry 
on an anti-slavery crusade as well as one against ignorance 
and bigotry, seems to be rather hypercritical than just.^ 

1 In support of his vehement arraignment of Columbus as a slave- 
driver, Dr. Winsor (^Christopher Columbus) lays particular stress upon 
a quotation from Benzoni. The choice is scarcely a happy one; (ist) 
because Benzoni did not visit the Indies until sixty years after the days 
of Columbus; (2d) because Benzoni, in the passage quoted, was writ- 
ing of Guatemala in 1560 circa, and not of Hispaniola in 1493; (3d) 
because we have the learned critic's own authority, in another place, 
for saying that Benzoni " yielded not a little to credulity and picked 
up mere gossip," and that his discontent with the Spaniards " colored 
somewhat his views." It is only fair to add that Benzoni was an ardent 
and somewhat undiscriminating admirer of his fellow-countryman, 
and had no thought of criticising him in the words thus misapplied by 
the modern historian. 



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1^^ 



VIII. 



THE BEGINNING OF CONQUEST. 



ALL that the departure of the "Mayflower," homeward 
bound, was to the sturdy Puritans, the sailing of 
Torres and his twelve ships was to the colony at Isabella, 
and more. In that case there was a sustaining trust and 
purpose, with a confidence that in due time other com- 
munication would be had with home; in the case of the 
Spaniards, their leader excepted, there was little sentiment 
loftier than the love of adventure, while the wide Ocean 
Sea was as yet so little known that there was no lack of 
prophets to predict that those who remained behind had 
seen the last of their countrymen from its farther shores. 
To their sense of isolation was added a feeling of abandon- 
ment, and to this a haunting fear lest they should perish 
vilely in the obscure corner of an unknown world whither 
their chimerical ambitions had so rashly led them. No 
sooner did they realize, therefore, that they had seen the 
last of the vessels, from whose crowded hulls they had so 
eagerly escaped a month before, than some of the more in- 
fluential among their number began planning to seize some 
of the five ships which the Admiral had retained, desert the 
colony, and make their way to Spain, where, as they believed, 
they could satisfy the King and Queen that the Italian ad- 
venturer whom they had appointed Viceroy over their loyal 
Castilian subjects was in reality a base deceiver and reck- 
less fabricator of wild romances. 

Situated as the colonists were, the spirit of mutiny was 
infectious. The Admiral's contemplated expedition into 
142 



THE BEGINNING OF CONQUEST. 143 

the golden district of Cibao would furnish the opportunity; 
the pitiful condition of the large number of fever-stricken, 
labor-worn invalids who must perforce be left behind, the 
excuse. The plot found an able head in Bernal de Pisa, 
royal comptroller, whose official standing at Court was 
known to be such that it lent a coloring of authority to his 
actions even when these were obviously illegal. He was 
assisted by other influential malcontents, among whom the 
royal assayer was perhaps most helpful. This scientific 
expert was willing to certify, from the abundance of his 
knowledge, that the golden nuggets of Hojeda and Gorva- 
lan were the inherited treasure of several generations of 
natives, melted down into lumps; and that when these had 
once been collected nothing remained for the Spaniards 
except the insignificant products from a laborious sifting 
of tiny grains from the river-beds. With this material and 
such other as his own craft supplied, Pisa quietly secured 
from many of the bitterest opponents of the Admiral and 
his projects a declaration or statement reflecting unspar- 
ingly upon the actions, plans, and methods of Columbus. 
This document, which seems to have been drawn up in 
proper notarial form for timely presentation to their 
Majesties, was hidden away on board one of the ships in 
the hollow of a rude buoy, such as was used for marking 
the position of a slipped cable. Whether by accident, or 
through that common treachery upon which every one else 
seems to count for the disclosure of a plot except those 
most interested in it, the Admiral, while yet busy with the 
preparations for his march, learned of the progress of 
Pisa's schemes. To seize the ringleaders and institute a 
formal inquiry into their guilt was the work of an hour. 
The comptroller, despite his rank and influence, was con- 
fined on one of the ships to await a convenient occasion 
for sending him to Spain. The more prominent among the 
followers were punished according to their quality, while 
the very afifidavits which were prepared by Pisa to secure 
the Admiral's overthrow were kept by the latter to be for- 
warded to his sovereigns as evidence of their comptroller's 
disloyalty. The revolt, if such it may be called, was 



144 '^^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

crushed out with a promptness which merits sincere ap- 
plause, but with a generosity toward the guilty as unwise 
as it was natural to the Admiral's disposition. Both those 
who had been detected and those who had escaped incrim- 
ination in the conspiracy united, at the first opportunity, 
in clamoring to their Majesties for relief from the rigor 
and injustice of the discipline inflicted by Columbus. 
No doubt he expected as much, and only withheld his hand 
from an unwillingness to mete out severer punishment upon 
Spanish nobles, being himself so constantly contemned for 
his foreign origin and jejune dignities. He could have 
been no more severely criticised, however, had he chastised 
the conspirators as they deserved, and an exhibition of un- 
bending determination would have commanded at least the 
respect of fear. As it was, sore as were the hearts of the 
ringleaders and the backs of their followers, the first were 
still beating and latter quickly cured; and the owners of 
both lived long enough to more than square accounts with 
their too-long-suffering commander. 

Impatient to start upon his journey to Cibao, and doubt- 
ful of the loyalty of many of those whose physical condition 
or official charges required that they should remain at Isa- 
bella, the Admiral preferred to place his trust, while absent, 
in the hardy seamen who manned his flagship, and thus effect- 
ually to remove all source of danger. He therefore trans- 
ferred from the four other vessels to the "Maria Galante " 
their artillery, ammunition, sails, and running tackle, and 
left that ship as well as those he had dismantled in charge 
of officers on whom he could rely. This done, he set dili- 
gently about completing his arrangements for the proposed 
reconnoissance. The government of Isabella was left in 
the hands of Diego Columbus, with an advisory council 
consisting of Fray Boil and others in whom the Admiral yet 
had confidence. All the men-at-arms, whether mounted or 
infantry, who seemed capable of standing the campaign 
were ordered to make ready, and to them were joined such 
of the carpenters, masons, miners, and other laborers as 
were strong enough to work. A force of natives was em- 
ployed to carry the tools and provisions, for as yet the 



THE BEGINNING OF CONQUEST. 145 

Spaniards had not learned to live on the food of the coun- 
try. As his Memorial intimates, it was not the Admiral's 
intention to cut loose absolutely from Isabella as a base, 
since he felt the necessity of keeping within relieving dis- 
tance of the town on account of the enfeebled condition 
of its defenders. At the same time, he wished to develop 
as large a knowledge as possible of the country beyond the 
Cibao mountains and establish at desirable points one or 
more fortified posts for the greater security both of those 
who should work the mines and of the necessary travel 
between these and Isabella. 

Columbus set out from the town at the head of his little 
army on Wednesday, the 12th of March, with trumpets 
sounding and ensigns unfurled. The occasion was one of 
rejoicing for the men composing his force, but for those 
who remained behind invalided or detained by duty his 
departure only added a fresh cause of misgiving or dissatis- 
faction. The certainty of novelty and adventure awaiting 
their more fortunate companions only increased their own 
captious discontent, and it was with no little apprehension 
that their leader began his march. The column made but 
ten miles on that day, as neither men nor horses were in 
condition to bear great fatigue. As soon as they struck the 
forest, all attempt at martial array was abandoned, and they 
followed the narrow Indian trails in such disorder as they 
found most convenient. Camp was pitched at the foot of 
a steep and rugged pass, leading over the range of moun- 
tains which divided the valley where Isabella lay from the 
vast plain traversed by Hojeda and christened the Vega Real 
by Columbus. This narrow path over the pass, for a dis- 
tance of a couple of bow-shots from its summit, was so 
abrupt that the horses could not attempt to scale it ; so the 
Admiral called upon some of the more spirited of the well- 
born soldiers who surrounded him to open a way for the 
column. They seem gladly to have carried out his orders, 
despite the hard manual labor involved; for by night a fea- 
sible road had been cleared to the top of the divide. In 
recognition of their service, — perhaps, with a glance of 
irony at the affectation of their caste never to work with 

10 



146 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

their hands, — their commander named the gap "the Gen- 
tlemen's Pass," and as such it was known for generations. 
On the next morning the march was resumed, and the 
Admiral soon had the satisfaction of seeing spread beneath 
his feet the whole extent of the great savannah. As far as 
the eye could range stretched the emerald floor, dotted at 
frequent intervals with belts of woodland and watered by 
serpentine rivers. From the number of native villages seen 
near at hand, and from the columns of smoke arising in the 
distance, it was evidently inhabited by a considerable pop- 
ulation. On its farther side rose the massive outlines of 
the rocky sierras of Cibao, the promised land of the Admi- 
ral's dreams and hopes. Whether, as he gazed across the 
smiling prairies of the Vega to the purple summits of the 
distant mountains, he still held the belief that he was face 
to face with the mysterious Cipango of Marco Polo's allur- 
ing tales, that ever-receding land of gold and precious stones 
which had so eluded his anxious search during the last year's 
voyage, he does not tell us. Had he still held the theory, 
it is probable some mention should have remained. What- 
ever his conjectures, as he swept the landscape with his 
watchful glances, one salient consideration was patent to 
his mind : access to the boasted wealth of Cibao was easy 
from Isabella and the people living on the route were rather 
of the mild type of Guacanagari's tribesmen than the fiery 
warriors of Samana Bay. 

The descent to the plain was much more gradual than the 
ascent of the Gentlemen's Pass just accomplished. Light 
of heart and cheered by the prospect of fertile lands and 
accessible mines, the Spaniards debouched on the level 
ground with a gaiety to which they had been strangers since 
the echoes of their lombards rolled unanswered into the 
darkness of Navidad. As they approached the first native 
village, the Indians swarmed forth to meet them with demon- 
strations of joyous welcome and reverent admiration, hail- 
ing their marvellous visitors as celestial beings and pressing 
upon them all the contents of their scanty hoards. A like 
scene was enacted at each succeeding settlement, until even 
the most contentious sceptic in the Castilian ranks was 



THE BEGINNING OF CONQUEST. 147 

forced to admit that, after all, there was some truth in the 
stories told concerning the natives of Hispaniola by their 
leader and his companions of the Discovery. Progress was 
so easy and their surroundings so agreeable after the dark 
days at Isabella that the men did not count their paces. They 
had already marched more than fifteen miles, when, towards 
evening, they reached the banks of a broad stream of clear 
water, which the Indians called the Yaqui, but which the 
Admiral named the River of Rushes, from the great beds of 
these growing along its borders. Here he camped for the 
night, vastly to the delight of his men, who showed the 
improvement in their spirits and health by betaking them- 
selves to the water and skylarking therein to their hearts' 
content. Breaking camp early on the following day, the 
14th, the men crossed the river, they and their impedimenta 
being transported on canoes and rafts supplied by the willing 
natives ; the horses were brought over a deep ford near by. 
For five miles the pleasurable experiences of the preceding 
day were repeated, the route lying along the Yaqui and then 
away from it, until the column came to a halt by the banks 
of a smaller but unfordable stream. Some difficulty was 
met with in getting across this, probably on account of the 
absence of boats ; but the trouble was more than compen- 
sated by the discovery among the river gravel of several 
grains of gold. This, and the increasing nearness of the 
Cibao mountains, was enough, in the Admiral's opinion, to 
entitle the stream to be called the Golden. At a short dis- 
tance beyond it the Spaniards came upon a large village, 
whose people seemed to be divided as to the reception to 
be accorded the intruders. Some of them fled incontinently 
towards the foot-hills, which there ran down into the plain; 
others took refuge in their cabins and, once inside, deemed 
themselves secure from all molestation if they placed a few 
light canes across their doorways. The soldiers were dis- 
posed to make light of this Edenic simplicity, but the 
Admiral forbade that any Christian should enter a hut, and 
thus, with the aid of signs and proffered gew-gaws, soon 
placated the villagers and established relations of greater 
confidence. Beyond this settlement the country became 



148 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

broken and more wooded, and when another stream was 
reached during the afternoon the column halted for the 
night on its hither bank. The charming freshness and 
beauty of the stream and its surroundings led the Admiral 
to call it the Verdant River; and from an abundance of 
polished and glittering pebbles in its bed and on its banks 
he saw that he was approaching the metalliferous region. 

Saturday, the 15th, the route lay across this stream and 
through a country of increasingly difficult passage. Several 
villages of importance were passed, and in each the natives 
fled to their huts and barred the open doorways with canes. 
Towards nightfall the column reached the base of a long and 
steep ascent which the Indian guides declared was the gate 
of Cibao, and here the wearied troops were glad to rest for 
the night. The distance travelled had not been great, but 
the roads, or rather paths, had been of the roughest, and all 
save the few horsemen were exhausted. Something of the 
novelty of their first sensations had also worn off, and the 
forbidding nature of the rugged district confronting them 
threatened a degree of toil and discomfort which was more 
vivid to their minds than the recollection of- the grateful 
scenes of the past few days. On Sunday morning the 
Admiral sent back to Isabella a party of men with some of 
his native carriers and several horses in order to obtain 
fresh supplies of bread and wine for the troops. Another 
detachment attacked the pass before them and shortly had 
cleared a passable road for the remaining horses and the 
main column, which accordingly resumed the ascent of the 
mountain. On reaching the crest of the divide the Span- 
iards had the choice of two widely differing panoramas, 
according as they looked ahead or turned and reviewed the 
district they had already traversed. In the one direction 
was the stern and troubled confusion of barren mountains 
and gigantic walls of rock; in the other, the fair and seduc- 
tive face of the lovely Vega Real. It is characteristic of 
the time and its men that they cared nothing now for the 
quiet charms and peaceful plenty of the broad savannahs 
where so lately they had revelled. Harsh as was the path 
ahead of them, it led into the recesses where the gold 
"grew," and that alone was worthy their consideration. 



THE BEGINNING OF CONQUEST. 149 

As the Spaniards turned their backs on the Vega and 
penetrated into the defiles of the sierras, they found cause 
to revise another of the censures so freely passed in secret 
against their commander and those who supported him. 
Not only was there evidence of gold, but of such quantity 
of it as seemed likely to lend confirmation to all they had 
ever heard of the golden treasures of the Indies they had 
so lately cursed. Not a creek or ravine but showed the 
yellow specks or spangles in bank or gravelly bed, while 
in many of the adjoining rocks those who laid claim to such 
special knowledge professed to discern indications of the 
precious ore. The column was now on ground familiar to 
Hojeda, where he had made his search for gold and gathered 
all he could obtain. The Indians of the district, mindful 
of the importance attached by their former white visitors to 
the yellow stuff they themselves cared so little for, hastened 
to meet the Guamiquina (the great chief) of these strangely 
bearded beings, and proffered him gifts of gold in dust 
and nugget which they had collected since they knew that 
their visitors cared for it. The Admiral accepted them all, 
readily enough, and made such return for them as satisfied 
the donors. Doubtless the advantage was on his side, but 
they did not think so; and there is every reason to believe 
that they acted freely and gladly at that time in pressing 
their offerings upon the Spanish explorers and that the latter 
treated them with a wise forbearance. 

The expedition had gone so far into the mountains that 
further advance with the horses was impracticable. In front 
of them rose the lofty wilderness of bald summits, sheer 
precipices, and towering peaks composing the sierras proper, 
and to attempt to thread their gloomy defiles was beyond the 
Admiral's plans. This was a task better fitted for smaller 
scouting-parties, who might conduct the work of explora- 
tion more successfully than the main column, with its 
demands of commissariat and transportation. He was al- 
ready satisfied with the mineral prospects of the district, 
for, in addition to the widely diffused indications of gold, 
he had found traces of copper and lapis-lazuli, besides 
amber and various aromatic trees and shrubs on the lower 



150 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

hills, which, he thought, promised a yield of valuable spices. 
Therefore, when, in the course of the day's march, he came 
upon a rounded hill encircled on three sides by a swift 
stream of crystal waters, in whose gravelly bed the Spaniards 
found evidence of fine gold in plenty, he determined to call 
a halt and built there the fort destined to serve as the base 
of future operations. The river was called Janique by the 
natives, and was only one of a number of similar streams 
which flowed from the rocky gorges of the mountains 
beyond, so that the site was convenient alike for access to 
the depth of the Cibao ranges and for communication with 
Isabella. Here the Admiral passed four days, superintend- 
ing the building of the stronghold, which was to bear the 
name of St. Thomas, as he had foreplanned, in standing 
rebuke of the sceptics who had denied the existence of gold 
or mines. A deep ditch was dug on the side unprotected 
by the river, and a tower of rough masonry erected on the 
summit of the hill. Argund this were built the barracks 
and stockades of heavy beams iilled in with clay. A little 
island at the foot of the hill, across the stream, offered a safe 
place for the growth of such European vegetables and grains 
as the garrison might choose to plant, and the whole aspect 
of the spot was one of healthful quiet and security.^ The 
Spaniards drew varying auguries from an incident attending 
the digging of the ditch. At the depth of a fathom or more 
beneath the surface, the laborers came upon some fossilized 
birds' nests, with three or four eggs converted into stone. 
Great was the wonder excited by this unusual spectacle, and 
the more sanguine among the spectators argued that the 
petrifications were proof positive of the mineral character 
of the soil of Cibao. 

In the meantime, two cavaliers, Lujan and Caspar, were 
sent farther into the mountains, with a scouting party. They 

1 Las Casas inherited from his father, who was with Columbus on 
this exploration, a small estate which included this fort and its vicinity. 
He expatiates with naive delight upon its beauties, and says that even 
at the time of his own residence there, thirty years afterwards, the little 
island produced " the best onions in all this Hispaniola," grown from 
the seeds planted by the garrison of the Admiral's fort. 



THE BEGINNING. OF CONQUEST. 151 

returned in a few days with a report extolling the wealth of 
the district, and declaring that in many parts it was even as 
fertile as the lower country. Work upon the fort progressed 
so well that by Friday, the 21st of March, the Admiral 
felt justified in commencing his homeward journey, for the 
condition of the colonists of Isabella was a source of con- 
stant anxiety to him. He left Pedro Margarite at Fort St. 
Thomas, as commander and deputy, with fifty-two good 
men, giving him ample instructions as to his method of 
procedure both towards the natives and with regard to the 
prosecution of the mining, or rather washing, operations. 
Shortly after setting out upon their return, the main col- 
umn encountered the train of horses and Indian carriers 
which had been sent to the town the week before for addi- 
tional supplies, and these the Admiral ordered to continue 
on to the fort and there discharge their burdens. He and 
his own force experienced much difficulty on this march, 
owing to the rivers being greatly swollen by heavy rains in 
the sierra. They were detained so long that they were 
forced to buy from the villages through which they passed 
such native food as the Indians had to offer, and it was 
not until the 29th of the month that they reached Isabella. 
Throughout the return, as on the advance, they had met 
with nothing but confidence and hospitality from the 
natives, and this the Admiral had requited in kind by for- 
bidding any excess or offence, and scrupulously paying in 
beads and other trinkets for all that was supplied or given 
to his men. 

The seventeen days which had elapsed since the depar- 
ture of the expedition for Cibao had passed far less cheer- 
fully in the town than with the absentees. The sickness 
continued to spread among the people, and was aggravated 
by the short rations and enforced labor. There was, indeed, 
an intimate connection between the two causes which 
should have been sufficient for reasonable men; but the 
fever-stricken and discontented crowd which remained at 
Isabella, was in no frame of mind to listen to anything 
but the recital of its own grievances. The small stock 
of biscuit which was landed unspoiled from the ships had 



152 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

soon been exhausted, and there was left nothing but the 
supply of wheat in grain. To grind this into flour, a mill 
was necessary, and no suitable site for it was found nearer 
than a league up the river. This involved an amount of 
labor beyond the forces of the few ditchers and artisans 
among the colonists, and when they succumbed to the 
climate, — as they were sure to do at such work, — either 
the "gentlemen " of the colony had to be called on to help 
or all hands would have to go hungry. In face of this 
dilemma, Columbus did not hesitate to order the work to 
be done by the arms available ; whether they were covered 
by black mantles or leathern jerkins was a matter of little 
importance. Unlike their ambitious peers of the Gentle- 
men's Pass, the ditch-digging hidalgos of the town looked 
upon their unfamiliar duty as an indignity, and as soon as the 
Admiral's back was turned, took counsel with other mal- 
contents among the officials. Poinding a congenial spirit 
in Fray Boil, they resolved to lay a representation of their 
unhappy condition before the Crown and demand the retire- 
ment of the foreign upstart who thus abused his authority 
as Viceroy to humiliate and sacrifice Spanish noblemen. 
Such was the posture of affairs which Diego Columbus had 
to report to his brother, upon the latter 's return from his 
successful expedition to the mines. There was nothing to 
do but to repeat his action in the more serious case of 
Bernal de Pisa, punishing the leaders in the dissatisfaction 
and warning their followers. If this had the momentary 
effect of repressing the open evidences of sedition, it only 
increased the hidden irritation, and there were many 
now ready to join any scheme which should be proposed 
for abandoning the Genoese Admiral, and betaking them 
to Spain to lay their complaints before the King and 
Queen. Incidentally, by so doing, they might obtain a 
larger share in the emoluments likely to flow from 
these self-same Indies; for they were only a "delusion" 
when administered by Columbus, his brother and their 
coterie. 

The Admiral's position was sufficiently harassing from 
the discovery of this new outbreak of discontent; but it 



THE BEGINNING OF CONQUEST. 153 

was rendered absolutely precarious by a new danger which 
arose most unexpectedly in another quarter. Scarcely a 
week had passed after his return to Isabella, when messen- 
gers arrived from Margarite, announcing that the Indians 
were abandoning their villages in masses and withdrawing 
into the mountains of Cibao, whence the redoubtable 
Caonabo had sent word to the Spaniards, that he should 
shortly issue forth with an overwhelming force and sweep 
Fort St. Thomas and its garrison from the earth as com- 
pletely as he had the ill-fated Navidad. This was in such 
complete contrast with all that Columbus had seen of the 
attitude of the natives while on his expedition, and all 
that he had learned concerning Caonabo, that the effect 
was well-nigh disheartening. Any hesitation might and 
probably would involve Margarite and his force in destruc- 
tion, and, at the same time, any half measures would be 
merely sowing the seeds of future embarrassment. The 
Admiral accordingly consulted with those of his adjutants 
in whom he had faith, and soon settled upon a course of 
action intended to deal radically with the present danger, 
and provide- against its recurrence. The plan contem- 
plated tallies so closely with the character of Hojeda, and 
that impetuous youth played so prominent a part in its 
execution, that we are disposed to attribute to him the sug- 
gestion of its main feature, which was, in plain English, the 
kidnapping of Caonabo. We hasten to add that we have 
no idea of shifting any responsibility from the Admiral's 
shoulders in saying this : the measure was too consonant 
with the spirit of the times to admit any doubt as to his 
probable willingness to originate it; but we think the 
sequel gives color to a belief that Hojeda was the author 
of the scheme, which undoubtedly received the hearty ap- 
proval of his leader. 

Orders were issued for all the healthy men to prepare at 
once for a prolonged campaign, and for the horsemen to 
make part of the force. Such provisions as the storehouses 
afforded were hastily packed for carriage by native por- 
ters, and to these were added the arms likely to be needed 
by the military portion of the force at St. Thomas. When 



154 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the arrangements were completed, and the detachment 
ready to march, every available man in Isabella was in the 
ranks, leaving the colony to be cared for and defended by 
the convalescents, artisans and mechanics, with the officials 
and priests to help them. Hojeda was put in command 
of the relieving column, which mustered 396 strong; 16 
horsemen, 250 lance and cross-bow men, no arquebusiers 
and twenty officers. Among the latter were those most 
trusted by the Admiral, so that in stripping the town of its 
defenders, and himself of his faithful adherents, he was 
giving the best evidence of the importance he attached to 
the movement. Hojeda bore a detailed letter of instruc- 
tions to Margarite, and was himself given certain verbal 
orders. He was to follow a different road from that taken 
by the first expedition, in order to avoid some of the 
obstacles met with at that time. His directions were of 
the strictest in relation to the considerate treatment of the 
Indians of the Vega Real and elsewhere. On arriving at 
St. Thomas, he was to turn over the command of the larger 
column to Margarite, who was to continue the advance into 
Cibao in search of Caonabo, Hojeda remaining meanwhile 
as commandant of the fort, with the original garrison of 
fifty-two, and a reinforcement of seventy more from the 
relieving force. The assignment of this relatively pacific 
duty to the young captain may, perhaps, be interpreted as 
indicating some doubt in the Admiral's mind as to his 
fitness for the diplomatic task of securing possession of the 
redoubted cacique without rousing the native population 
to a war of reprisal. 

Hojeda left Isabella with his command on the 9th of 
April. The letter of instructions which he was to deliver 
to Don Pedro Margarite was full and explicit, and was 
dated on the same day. It thus apparently includes the 
final deliberations of the Admiral in the matter of his policy 
towards the natives, whether these belonged to the peace- 
able tribes, like those of the Vega, or were warriors, like 
those under the leadership of Caonabo and Mayrionex. As 
it was written under the influence of a sudden surprise and 
an apprehended collision with the mountaineers of Cibao, 



THE BEGINNING OF CONQUEST. 155 

and was issued specifically under the absolute authority 
vested in Columbus as Viceroy and perpetual Governor of 
the Indies for the King and Queen, without fear of censure 
or criticism, it may safely be assumed to be the natural and 
genuine expression of his sentiments and intentions at that 
time with regard to the native population. From this point 
of view the document possesses a peculiar interest for 
those who care to form their own estimate of its author's 
character. 

Upon the arrival of Hojeda's column at Fort St. Thomas, 
it recites, Margarite is to divide it into as many separate 
battalions, preferably three, as he judges best for the service 
contemplated (for he was reputed a gallant and skilful gen- 
eral), appointing to the command of each the captain he may 
select. The Admiral declares, that, although what he writes 
is based upon such experience as has thus far been gathered 
in the several expeditions sent out from Isabella, he leaves 
to Margarite full liberty to add to, or take from, the in- 
structions which follow anything which, in his opinion, the 
special circumstances of the time or place may demand, 
"for the principal object in view is that you march with all 
the people here enumerated throughout this whole island, 
reconnoitering its provinces, people, districts, and produc- 
tions, and particularly the whole province of Cibao." In 
executing this programme, the Admiral adds, Margarite may 
rely upon being supported with all that he needs from Isa- 
bella as a base. "The chief thing which you have to do," 
proceeds the letter, " is to protect carefully the Indians, 
that no harm or wrong be done them, and nothing taken 
from them against their will; rather let them be shown 
respect, and be so satisfied that they will not have cause for 
anger." In somewhat violent contrast to this recommenda- 
tion, he directs that if any Indian should steal from the 
Spaniards he is to have nose and ears cut off, " for these are 
members which cannot be concealed," and thus the natives 
will soon learn, that " it was for the theft committed, and 
that the good will be very kindly treated, but the evil will be 
punished." The proposed chastisement has, of course, 
given occasion for a chorus of vehement outbursts from his 



156 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

censors against the rank cruelty of Columbus; but they for- 
get that he was merely applying the accepted punishment 
of his day for the offence specified, and that the statute 
books of both Europe and America imposed the same or a 
worse penalty for theft for centuries after his fingers were 
dust. The Admiral based his order upon the tendency to 
pilfer, which he had observed both in his first voyage and 
on this recent march to Cibao. Whether it was policy or 
not to treat the Indians, to whom the appropriation of what 
they liked was no crime, as though they were thieving Span- 
ish peasants, is a matter of opinion; but it is idle to claim 
that any cruelty was intended or sanctioned in visiting upon 
the savages a retribution not deemed excessive for European 
offenders. 

The scantiness of Spanish rations available would compel 
Margarite to depend to a great extent upon the natives for 
subsistence; and, accordingly, minute instructions are given 
as to his treatment of the Indians in procuring supplies. 
Two minor officials are intrusted with a sufficient quantity 
of beads, hawk-bells, and other trinkets to be used in 
exchange for provisions, and are strictly enjoined "to pay 
in these articles for all the bread and other victuals which 
it may be needful to buy," keeping a detailed account of 
the time, place, and character of every transaction, and con- 
ducting each in the presence of a deputy of the Comptroller. 
To insure the execution of this order, Margarite is told to 
detach twenty-five men and place them under the command 
of Luis de Arriaga, who shall act in the double capacity of 
guard and overseer for the commissaries appointed, " so 
that there may be no excuse for any one, of whatever rank 
or condition he may be, to take anything from the Indians 
and thus cause them two thousand vexations. This is some- 
thing," pursues the Admiral, with an evident appreciation of 
the danger of unrestricted intercourse between his followers 
and the confiding natives, "which is especially contrary to 
the wishes and service of the King and Queen, our sover- 
eigns. Their Majesties desire more the salvation of these 
people, and that they may become Christians, than all the 
treasures that can issue from this country. Therefore ample 



THE BEGINNING OF CONQUEST. 157 

provision is made so that every one may be satisfied, since 
their Majesties have ordered that they should all be paid for 
food and such other things as may be necessary to you. If 
by chance you should not obtain enough food by purchase, 
you are to take measures to secure it otherwise, taking it in 
the most honest manner practicable and coaxing the In- 
dians." The latter advice resembles somewhat that attrib- 
uted to the Quaker parent; but its motive is clearly to pre- 
vent injustice to the natives. 

Having taken what precautions he deemed sufficient to 
ensure the maintenance of pacific relations with the Indian 
population in general, Columbus now proceeds to unfold 
his scheme for securing the person of that chief, who, he 
considered, represented the element hostile to the Spanish 
occupation of Hispaniola. It is hardly necessary, with the 
experience of four centuries of contact between European 
and aborigine to guide us, to dwell upon the futility of his 
calculations; nor is it profitable to hurl objurgations at the 
long-dead discoverer for the moral obtuseness which sanc- 
tioned such a plan. In proposing it, the Admiral and his 
advisers were following a custom not only permitted but 
applauded in the wars with which they were most familiar, 
and to Columbus the act was more than justifiable; it was 
obligatory in view of the massacre by Caonabo of the Navi- 
dad garrison. With this stroke the Admiral hoped to 
remove the main danger of a native revolt, and send to Spain 
the most famous warrior of the Indies as an earnest to their 
Majesties of the successful establishment of the Spanish 
power. There is a frankness about the whole proposition 
which would be cynical were it not for its transparent sim- 
plicity. 

"In this affair of Caonabo," the Admiral writes to Margarite, 
" I greatly desire that such a course should be diligently pursued 
that we may be enabled to have him in our power, and to ac- 
complish this you should proceed in the following manner, in 
my opinion : send some one, with ten very discreet men, who 
shall take a present of certain things which are being taken to 
you by those who carry the articles for traffic. Let these men 
flatter him, and show him that I have a great longing for his 



158 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

friendship and will send him other gifts, and that he should send 
us some gold. Let them impress upon him how it is that you 
are there and that you are marching through the country at 
pleasure with many people ; that we have men beyond number 
and each day many more are coming, and that I will send him 
constantly some of the articles they are bringing from Castile. 
Let him be treated with this kind of speech until you have estab- 
lished friendship with him, so that he may be the more quickly 
taken. You should not attempt just now to go to Caonabo with 
the whole force, but send Contreras. He can take the ten 
soldiers, and they can return with the reply wherever you may 
be. As soon as this party has been received, you can send 
another and yet another, until the said Caonabo is satisfied and 
without suspicion that you intend doing him harm, when you 
can decide upon the method of capturing him as to you may 
seem best and according to what Contreras shall have told him. 
In this let Contreras do only what you shall have said and not 
exceed it. 

" The method to be pursued in seizing Caonabo, subject to 
what may be discovered at the time, is this : Contreras is to 
labor diligently with him and arrange that Caonabo goes to talk 
with you, so that you may the more securely accomplish his 
seizure. As he is accustomed to go naked, it would be difficult 
to hold him, and if once he should escape and flee it would not 
be possible to get him again in your hands, owing to the nature 
of the country ; therefore, when he is before you, give him a 
shirt and have him dress himself at once, let him have also a 
long gown and girdle it with a belt, and put a hood upon his 
head. Having done this you may secure him and he cannot 
escape. You ought likewise to seize his relatives who may be 
with him. If for any reason Caonabo himself should be indis- 
posed, so that he cannot go to visit you, so manage with him 
that he will accept in good part your going to him. Before you 
reach him Contreras ought to precede you to assure him, saying 
to him that you are visiting him for the purpose of seeing and 
knowing him and establishing friendly relations ; for upon your 
appearing with a large force he might become apprehensive and 
start to escape to the mountains, and you would miss the quarry. 
All this, however, is referred to your discretion, for you to do as 
you think best." 

Such was the elaborate stratagem planned to secure this 
one savage leader. We have given it to our readers at full 
length, because it illustrates so graphically that side of the 



THE BEGINNING OF CONQUEST. 159 

character of Columbus which has been persistently attacked 
as contemptible and mean. Tried by the standard of morals 
which we preach, it admits of no defence, for it is a net- 
work of deceit and falsehood. Compared with the code 
of ethics which we ourselves have so consistently practised 
in our relations with the red man, an experienced ob- 
server would doubtless pronounce Columbus to be almost 
too thoughtful of his adversary to make a successful Indian 
fighter. 

The remaining instructions to Margarite relate to matters 
of discipline. He is to see that justice is respected and 
that all who disobey his orders are severely chastised, other- 
wise the errors of Arana's force might be repeated; the men 
would scatter, lose their sense of duty, and commit excesses, 
and thus be exposed to retaliation by the natives who would 
not hesitate to murder stragglers, although they were too 
cowardly to attack the larger parties. " Let me remind 
you," writes the x^dmiral, "that there are no people so evil 
as cowards, who never give quarter to any one ; so that if 
these Indians find one or two men straggling it would not 
be surprising if they killed them." Margarite is further 
ordered to open roads and paths on whatever journeys he 
should make, erecting crosses at convenient points and cut- 
ting them and the names of their Catholic Majesties on the 
largest trees in signal of possession. He is also to under- 
take a reconnoissance into the country beyond Cibao which 
the natives called Yamahuix, and determine its nature, as 
well as the extent of Cibao. But, since Caspar's scout 
established the nearly impassable character of those regions, 
Margarite is cautioned to leave his horses behind at Fort St. 
Thomas in care of a skilful trooper who will keep them in 
condition. The document closes by conferring upon Mar- 
garite "the same power which I hold from their Majesties 
as Viceroy and Captain General of these Indies," and 
charges all who are under his command to obey his instruc- 
tions as fully and under the same penalties for disobedience 
as though the author were present in person. It is signed 
with the signature generally used by Columbus after the 
Discovery, — "The Admiral." 



l6o THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Hojeda left Isabella with his column on the same day, 
April 9th. His progress to and through the Vega Real was 
marked by no incident more serious than meeting with 
three Spaniards coming from Fort St. Thomas, who com- 
plained that, in fording the Golden River, the Indians 
who were carrying their arms and clothes had abandoned 
the white men and gone back to their own village with the 
plunder, which they had delivered over to their cacique. 
The latter, instead of punishing them, coolly appropriated 
the clothing for his own adornment. On learning who 
this chief was, Hojeda vowed to take vengeance upon him 
for the theft, and as soon as he reached the village incon- 
tinently seized both the cacique and his nephew and sent 
them back to Isabella in chains. Not content with this, 
he caused one of the guilty Indians to be brought into the 
public square or meeting ground of the settlement, and 
there cut off his ears as a warning to his tribe, after which 
he resumed his march. When the two captives, with their 
guard, passed the villages adjoining their own, the sight of 
their chains and their tale of injustice so moved the other 
natives, that another cacique volunteered to accompany 
them to the white men's town and plead their cause with 
the great Guamiquina himself; confident that, when the 
Admiral should know that these prisoners were among those 
chiefs who had shown the most friendliness and hospitality 
both to himself while on the way to Cibao and to Hojeda 
on his first expedition, he would instantly order them 
released. In due time the party reached Isabella, and the 
case was laid before Columbus. He chose rather to 
believe Hojeda's report concerning it than the statements 
of the prisoners and their loyal neighbor, and, in order to 
impress them with an exhibition both of his authority and 
clemency, sentenced the captive cacique and his nephew 
to death. They were accordingly led out to the plaza and 
announcement made that they were to be decapitated, 
whereat their fellow-cacique implored the Admiral, with 
tears and sobs, to spare their lives, assuring him, as well as 
he could by signs and words, that never again should the 
offence be repeated. After a sufficient show of harshness, 



THE 'BEGINNING OF CONQUEST. i6l 

the Admiral consented to pardon them and ordered their 
release, vastly to the joy of their disinterested advocate. 
So far no harm had been done. The coup de theatre 
planned by Columbus seems scarcely worth while in our 
present lights; but it may have had its value under the 
circumstances. The same trick has been played since 
with good results. But before the captive cacique's peo- 
ple had an opportunity to learn the clemency shown their 
chief, they had taken the law in their own hands by sur- 
rounding a squad of five Spaniards, who passed through 
their village after Hojeda's departure, and threatening 
them with death in retaliation for the anticipated loss of 
their cacique. Just as the unfortunate Castilians had con- 
cluded that their last hour had sounded, one of the mounted 
men-at-arms from Hojeda's column came into the same 
village. Seeing his comrades surrounded by a crowd of 
several hundred angry natives, he promptly laid his lance 
in rest and spurred his horse into the naked throng. The 
effect was instantaneous, for most of the Indians still con- 
sidered the horseman to be some kind of composite 
demon : in a moment the five Spaniards were free men and 
their captors had fled to the woods. The soldiers reached 
Isabella safely, just after the Admiral had released his two 
condemned prisonel^^, and related their story. It did not 
affect his determination, but it gave him food for reflec- 
tion, for he saw more clearly than ever the danger of 
disaster from the unjust and despotic conduct of his fol- 
lowers in their dealings with the natives. He relied on 
the sincerity of his own intentions towards them, and the 
efficacy of his explicit instructions to Margarite to prevent 
a recurrence of such a disturbing incident as that just 
closed; but in this he was grievously in error, as we all 
know from the sequel. Nevertheless, as the days passed 
without further signs of discontent, and messengers came 
and went freely between Isabella and St. Thomas, he 
persuaded himself that the trouble at the Golden River 
was only a flash in the pan, and that, with Margarite 
in the field with 400 men, all risk of serious trouble was 
over. 



1 62 



THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 



He had laid down, in writing and by his actions, on 
clearly defined lines, the policy to be pursued by his peo- 
ple in their relations with the Indian population, and in the 
conviction that it would be loyally carried out, he antici- 
pated no further ground for anxiety on this score. 




IX. 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. 



WITH the organization of the expedition sent to Mar- 
garite the Admiral felt that he had provided, so far as 
his present resources allowed, both for the development of 
the Cibao gold workings and the systematic exploration of the 
island. The prompt measures adopted for repressing the 
mutinous tendency of the discontented faction in the colony 
had, he believed, removed all danger of open revolt, although 
he realized and discounted in all his plans the existence of 
a wide-spread spirit of dissatisfaction with himself and his 
methods. Since there was no prospect of an early arrival 
of vessels from Spain, and he had so recently sent thither 
a full statement of his proceedings, and the needs of the col- 
ony, he conceived that no opportunity would be more fitting 
for him to execute their Majesties' earnest and repeated in- 
junctions to complete at the earliest practicable moment his 
exploration of Cuba, and determine whether it was merely a 
great island, as the Indians had told him at the time of the 
Discovery, or the eastern extension of the Asiatic continent, 
as he was himself disposed to argue. In reaching this de- 
cision, there is little doubt that he was influenced by his 
natural bias in favor of the sea and the investigation of its 
mysteries. He thought that the question concerning Cuba 
could be settled in a month or two at the most, and he 
should then be free to pursue his plans of discovery towards 
the South in the near future. It is, perhaps, worth while 
to bear in mind these motives, for they furnish a sufficient 
answer to the accusations of sordid avarice and selfish ambi- 



164 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

tion so freely brought against Columbus by his censors. If 
he were greedy of gold, why should he turn his back on the 
proven wealth of the gravels and rocks of Cibao? If he 
were covetous of power and official rank, why should he 
abandon the post of Viceroy, and subject himself to the 
certain hardships and doubtful rewards of another voyage of 
discovery? There was no lack of competent and spirited 
navigators and adventurers in his following ; why not send 
these to explore the Cuban coasts ? The result of their dis- 
coveries would redound to his glory, and the government of 
the lands they might find would fall within his jurisdiction, 
whether he or another were the discoverer. If the famous 
provinces of Mangi and Cathay were shown to lie among 
the Cuban mountains, as he had believed when coasting that 
island the year before, he could do no more than ascertain 
the fact with the force he proposed to take, and this could 
be as well done by a deputy. Look at the matter as we 
may, the record means nothing, if it does not prove that, 
in leaving Isabella at the time and in the manner he did, 
Columbus sunk the Viceroy in the Admiral, and subordi- 
nated every other sentiment to his persistent determination 
to solve the enigmas of the Ocean Sea. He was sailor and 
explorer in every fibre of his being ; and, having done all he 
deemed necessary to develop and protect the interests of 
the Crown in Hispaniola, his thoughts turned to blue water 
and unvisited shores as naturally as do those of certain of 
his critics to the degraded qualities which he did not possess 
and the crimes of which he was not guilty. 

His preparations were soon and simply made. The gov- 
ernment of the island was committed to a Council com- 
posed of Diego Columbus as President, and Fray Boil, 
Pedro Alonzo Coronel, Alonzo Sanchez de Carvajal, and 
Juan de Lujan, as members. These were to receive all his 
delegated powers, while Pedro Margarite was to be com- 
mander-in-chief of the military forces, and the Viceroy's 
lieutenant in pai'tibus. His selection of councillors and 
deputies, with the one exception of his brother, was guided 
by an honest desire to consult the preferences of his sover- 
eigns, for all the others were men who stood high in the 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. 1 65 

esteem of Ferdinand and Isabella, and they were not all 
friendly to the Admiral. Fray Boil, Columbus knew, was 
opposed to him, for he had espoused the cause of Bernal de 
Pisa, and openly disputed the Admiral's right to make Cas- 
tilian hidalgos work like common laborers, and tonsured 
priests live on short rations like ordinary laymen. If he had 
been seeking only his own welfare and aggrandizement, his 
choice would have been otherwise ; in making it as he did 
he displayed both policy and moderation. Unfortunately, 
we have no copy preserved of the instructions left with the 
Council, and are dependent upon occasional references for 
our knowledge of its proceedings during his absence. He 
left with the colony the two large and well-armed carracks, 
fitting out only the three small caravels as better suited for 
his own purposes. On these he took no soldiers, but chose 
their pilots, officers, and crews with a view only to their pro- 
ficiency as seamen. The names of all the men have come 
down to us, and they represent nearly every seaport in 
Spain, and a few in Portugal and Italy. The Admiral was 
going on no summer cruise, and he wanted none but sailor- 
men on board his craft. The little fleet was scantily pro- 
visioned, for the colonial stores were at the lowest ebb. As 
interpreter he took the sole survivor of the natives of Guana- 
hani who had returned to Spain with him from the Discov- 
ery. This young Indian had been baptized by the name of 
the Admiral's brother, Diego Colon, and was proficient in 
Spanish as well as in some of the dialects of Cuba and the 
Bahamas. The Admiral selected his favorite " Niiia " as his 
flagship, with Juan de la Cosa and Francisco Nino as his 
chief pilots. A priest and the customary crown officials — 
notary, inspector, and comptroller — accompanied the squad- 
ron, together with three or four body-servants of his own. 

The caravels weighed anchor and sailed out of the harbor 
of Isabella at midday on Thursday, the 24th of April, barely 
a fortnight after the departure of Hojeda and his column to 
join Margarite. As was his habit, the Admiral began his 
voyage " in the name of the Holy Trinity," a pious formal- 
ity from which he derived much consolation. Taking a 
westerly course, he anchored for the night in the harbor of 



1 66 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Monte Christi, and proceeded the next day to the old 
anchorage at Navidad. He hoped, by touching here, to 
find that Guacanagari had returned from his hasty flight, 
and to have a conference with him ; but although the natives 
came freely alongside the caravels in their canoes, and re- 
peated the familiar story about their king having gone on 
only a short journey and intending soon to return, Guaca- 
nagari failed to appear. After waiting a day, the squadron 
sailed to the island of Tortugas, where it was becalmed 
over night, and forced on the following day by winds and a 
high sea to take refuge in the mouth of the river called by 
the Admiral on his first voyage the Guadalquivir. At last, 
on Tuesday, the 29th, Port St. Nicholas, at the western end 
of Hayti, was reached, and from here the outlines of the 
easternmost cape of Cuba, that Alpha and Omega of the 
Admiral's former voyage, were faintly discernible. Was it, 
in truth, the beginning and the end of the mighty continent 
of Asia, or merely a rocky headland jutting out from a 
lordly island, distinguished from Hispaniola, Guadalupe, and 
Dominica only by its vaster size? This was the problem 
which he had come to solve, and in its solution he would 
gladly adventure every ambition and hope of advantage that 
he nourished. 

Leaving Cape St. Nicholas, adjoining the port of that 
name, the caravels traversed the fifty or sixty miles which 
separate the two great islands, and approached the coast of 
Cuba near the point from which he had sailed for Hayti the 
year before. At that time the Admiral had, it will be 
remembered, reached Point Maysi from the northern side 
of the island, and noted, on arriving there, that the coast 
line doubled abruptly toward the west and southwest, in 
which directions it appeared to continue indefinitely. On 
the present voyage his interest lay wholly on the southern 
side of the island, for it was to follow this coast in its west- 
ward trend that he had come. If, sooner or later, it turned 
again toward the north, he should have discovered one 
more island. If, on the contrary, it were to lead him fur- 
ther and further south, he should, in his opinion, have 
reached the shores of Asia itself, and have before him its 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. 1 6/ 

teeming wealth and countless myriads of people, the goal 
of all his long years of effort and sacrifice. 

Hugging close the coast line, the fleet sailed due west 
for sixty or seventy miles without observing anything more 
interesting than the luxuriant forests of the littoral and the 
magnificent mountain ranges of the interior. At about this 
distance from the eastern end of the island a harbor was 
found whose narrow entrance belied its proportions, for it 
ran far into the land. The squadron came to anchor here, 
and was soon surrounded with native canoes whose occu- 
pants brought fish and conies to barter with the Spaniards. 
The fame of these astonishing white visitors had evidently 
crossed the island from the northern shores, or else been 
communicated from Hayti, for these Indians exhibited a 
friendliness and freedom from all fear which showed that they 
had learned something of the favorable side of their visitors' 
character. The vessels remained in this bay until Sunday, 
the I St of May, and the Admiral exerted himself to learn 
more of Cuba and its people, but added little to his knowl- 
edge. Weighing anchor he continued along the coast, 
which now became more irregular, being indented with bays 
and the mouths of considerable streams. The great sierras 
came somewhat nearer to the sea, and the rank luxuriance 
of the forest growth bore witness to the soil's abounding 
fertility. From almost every inlet and point the natives 
put out in their canoes and paddled out to the caravels, 
bent on holding intercourse and traffic with the strangers. 
It was a repetition of the Admiral's experience on his first 
voyage, and the same expressions of joyful welcome and 
admiration rung from the thronging Cubans as they came 
near the ships. To them, as to their brethren of the north- 
ern shore, the Bahamas, and Hayti, these bearded new- 
comers were heavenly visitants, — no doubt they had been 
so described by the other natives who had brought the news 
of their arrival a year ago, — and, therefore, all the Indians 
had was placed freely at the white men's disposal. In due 
time they were requited for their hospitahty in the approved 
Castilian style, being exterminated with a thoroughness 
which left nothing to be desired. For the present, how- 



1 68 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ever, the Spaniards acted with justice and liberality, for the 
Admiral's orders were of the strictest that nothing was to be 
accepted without fitting compensation of beads, bells, and 
other like trifles, all of which were received by the grateful 
Cubans as of celestial origin. In answer to the Admiral's 
persistent inquiries, they could give little information as to 
the extent of Cuba, whether it were island or continent, or 
in just what direction lay Mangi and Cathay. Of the latter 
Asiatic province he could learn nothing ; but he fancied 
that the name of the former one was repeated intelligently 
by the natives and that they indicated that it was some- 
where beyond. Of gold they had little or none and seemed 
to care nothing for it ; but all concurred in pointing to the 
south, and saying that in that quarter was a great country 
where was gold in plenty. So consistent and general were 
these affirmations, that after he had passed a fortnight on the 
Cuban coast and reached a point a little to the east of 
Cape Cruz, the Admiral determined to steer due south 
until he came to the land of which he heard so much. 
That it was not far off he knew, for the Indians passed 
fearlessly between it and Cuba in their light canoes. They 
called it Hamaica, or something that sounded like this, and 
there may have been, as Las Casas suggests, some thought 
in the Admiral's mind that this was the golden Babeque 
or Baveca, of which he had heard so much on his first voy- 
age. At all events, on the 13th of May, he headed the fleet 
directly away from the Cuban coast and sailed southward. 
The voyage was not a long one, for at daylight on the fol- 
lowing morning there lay dead ahead of the fleet a colossal 
group of mountain peaks, rising in symmetrical terraces from 
the water's edge to and beyond the heavy masses of vapor 
which partially hid their crests from sight. It was a repeti- 
tion, on a vaster scale, of the scenic glories of Guadalupe 
and Dominica, save that the outlines of this latest landfall 
were somewhat less angular, and there was a languorous 
haze which the islands of the Caribs did not possess. So 
majestic was the appearance of the island that it seemed 
worthy of a name of peculiar honor, and accordingly the 
Admiral christened it Santiago, in homage to the patron 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. 1 69 

saint of Spain. A nearer approach to this favored land only 
revealed new beauties, but light winds kept the ships off 
shore until Monday morning. The Admiral hastened then 
to cast anchor in the first roadstead that offered a fair haven ; 
but, on the small boats attempting to land, they were beset 
by a numerous flotilla of canoes which put out from the 
beach filled with native warriors well armed with lances and 
bows, who made unmistakable demonstrations of hostility. 
Not wishing to provoke a conflict, for the Admiral's orders 
were positive against this, the boats returned to the caravels 
which weighed anchor at once and stood alongshore toward 
the west. Some twenty miles in that direction they reached 
a spacious harbor, shaped like a horse-shoe, to which the 
Admiral gave the name of Puerto Bueno. Anchoring here, 
the fleet encountered a reception similar to that from which 
it had just escaped. The Indians swarmed in their canoes 
about the vessels, threatening the Christians with a fierce- 
ness which led the latter to classify them rather with the 
warlike cannibals than with the pacific peoples of Cuba and 
the Vega Real. So daring were the Jamaicans that the Ad- 
miral thought it necessary to give them a realizing sense of 
the white men's power, so he directed a number of cross- 
bows to be discharged into the swarm of canoes surrounding 
the ships. Half a dozen Indians were wounded by the 
bolts which followed this order, whereupon their companions 
gave up their show of hostility and withdrew to a safe dis- 
tance. Having accomplished his object, — whether well or 
ill depends upon the circumstances of the occasion, — the 
Admiral caused every effort to be made, both from the ships 
and on shore when his men landed, by the offer of attractive 
gewgaws and constant exhibitions of friendliness, to restore 
confidence among the natives and establish peaceable rela- 
tions. It did not take long to accomplish this, and soon 
the usual traffic was in progress, and Indians as well as 
Spaniards were content with the result. Great throngs of 
the Jamaicans visited the ships, and from them some knowl- 
edge of their country was picked up. They knew where to 
find gold and it was plentiful. Their country was surrounded 
by water ; off yonder, somewhere in the south or west, was 



170 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

another great country. Altogether, the sum of their in- 
formation was not great, and the Admiral saw that he was 
as far from Mangi and Cathay as ever. He proposed sail- 
ing westward along the northern shore of Jamaica to learn 
something more of its size and character, but before doing 
so wished to stop a serious leak which had sprung in one 
of his caravels. Accordingly, he careened her on a con- 
venient beach in the harbor where the squadron was lying, 
and, while the work was being done, accumulated a stock 
of provisions from the natives, and investigated as far as he 
could the country and its people. Three or four days were 
passed at this place, during which time the best of relations 
were established with the islanders. When the squadron 
resumed its cruise, following the coast towards the west, the 
Indians put out freely from points alongshore and accom- 
panied the vessels, keeping up a running traffic with the 
sailors and displaying every demonstration of eager delight. 
It was the experience of the first voyage repeated. 

On approaching the western extremity of the island a suc- 
cession of violent headwinds was encountered which forbade 
for the present any effort to continue the cruise towards the 
south. The insular character of Jamaica was determined, 
and nothing of immediate importance was to be gained by 
hngering on its shores. The Admiral, therefore, put about 
and laid his course again for Cuba, making its coast on the 
1 8th of May at the cape now called Cruz, a little to the west 
of the point whence he had sailed for Jamaica. It was his 
purpose to continue his exploration of Cuba towards the 
west for 500 or 600 leagues, if need be, until he had finally 
discovered whether it was in truth a part of the Asiatic con- 
tinent, or only the huge island which some of its natives had 
affirmed. As he pursued his way the coast trended more 
and more to the south, thus strengthening the continental 
theory, and, as day after day passed without any indication of a 
northerly bend, this idea became well-nigh a settled conviction 
in the minds of all on board the three caravels. The difficul- 
ties of navigation increased as the voyage proceeded. The 
terrific rain-storms of the tropics, with their violent bursts of 
wind, inky skies, incessant hghtning and deafening thunder 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. \-ji 

peals, broke daily over the undecked vessels, threatening to 
overwhelm them between the weight of water entering from 
overhead and that shipped from the tempest-lashed sea. 
Long lines of dangerous shoals beset their course, on which 
they would infallibly have been wrecked but for the exer- 
cise of a laborious and constant vigilance. The experience 
was new and alarming to all, for the precautions with which 
they were familiar seemed idle ; if they attempted to heave 
to and ride out the storms, they were in peril of the surround- 
ing shoals, and if they carried the sail necessary to avoid 
these, they were liable to be thrown on their beam ends by 
the first fierce blast. In spite of these obstacles the Admiral 
pursued his course, keeping as near the coast as it was pru- 
dent and picking his way through the cays and shallows as 
best he could. As he got farther westward he entered a 
labyrinth of small islands ; some were reefs awash with the 
surface of the water, others were well wooded and inviting. 
This archipelago expanded, as he made his way cautiously 
through its tortuous channels, until, in a single day, the 
sailors counted i6o islets of varying sizes. Even the 
Admiral's fertility in name-choosing was unequal to furnish- 
ing a distinctive title for each of this infinite array, so he 
called the whole group The Queen's Garden, as he had, the 
year before, called the corresponding group off the northern 
coast of Cuba, the Garden of the King. The slow rate of 
progress to which the vessels were necessarily confined, 
afforded frequent occasion for landing on the islands, and 
thus the Spaniards observed the strange animals and birds with 
which they abounded. For the same reason they watched 
more closely than was their wont the countless varieties of 
fish which swarmed in the narrow waters, and found a wel- 
come change from their limited commissariat in the shoals 
of turtle which floated sleepily on the water's surface or lay 
idly on the sandy keys. As the squadron cleared the shoals 
and entered the maze of forest-burdened islets, the air grew 
heavy with the fragrance of blossom and shrub, especially at 
night, when, the day's storm being over and the brilliancy of 
a growing moon flooding all about them with its grateful light, 
even the rough seamen found some compensation for the 



1/2 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

toils and perils of the trying day. Even in the clearer chan- 
nels through which the vessels were now threading, they were 
exposed to constant risk of running aground, and, despite 
double watches and masthead lookouts, the " Nina " drove 
on a hidden bank and was only warped off with infinite 
patience and labor. Few of the islands were inhabited, and 
on these the population was small and scattered. Generally 
the Indians showed no fear, approaching the caravels and 
offering their fish or other trifling commodities with simple 
hospitality. On one of the largest, — of sufficient importance 
to be christened by the not very distinctive name of Santa 
Maria, — a village of considerable size was found ; but here 
the natives took to the woods at the approach of the white 
men, leaving their scanty possessions to be examined by their 
visitors at leisure. To all the natives encountered some gift 
of beads or bells was made, and nothing was taken from 
them, even when freely offered, without an equivalent being 
returned. For a slave-driver, Columbus certainly acted with 
a singular considerateness in dealing with his prey. 

The Indians of this archipelago united in saying that it 
spread out in all directions away from the mainland of 
Cuba, and was of indefinite extent. This, with a threatened 
scarcity of fresh water on the vessels, decided the Admiral 
to return to the Cuban coast ; so, on the 3rd of June, he 
gradually worked his way to the northward and struck the 
coast somewhere about the modern Trinidad or Xagua. 
Here the forest was so dense, down to the very water's edge, 
that it was impossible to ascertain whether this part of the 
coast was inhabited or not. The small boats were rowed 
close alongshore to look for signs of native habitation, but 
none were discovered until a sailor, less fearful or more en- 
ergetic than his shipmates, arming himself with a cross-bow, 
landed and entered the woods to hunt birds. Scarcely had 
he disappeared in the thick jungle when his companions 
heard him calling loudly for assistance, and hastily ran to 
his rescue. When they arrived he was alone, but related 
that he had run against a band of some thirty Indians, 
stealthily watching the caravels and boats from behind the 
curtain of trees and vines. All were armed with wooden 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. 



WS 



spears and bows and arrows, and some carried in addition 
great double-edged swords of heavy wood.^ One of the 
men, he affirmed, was clad in a long white tunic reaching 
to the ground. They offered no harm to the solitary invader 
when he came among them, but, at the sound of his shouts 
for aid, had instantly dispersed and gUded into the trackless 
woods. The Spaniards returned on board ship, and related 
their experience to the Admiral, who sent an armed party 
ashore the next day to trace the fugitives to their home, if 
possible. The detachment stumbled through a mangrove 
swamp and forced a painful way through the matted under- 
growth for a couple of miles, and came back empty-handed 
to report the impracticability of conducting a pursuit through 
such obstacles, only to be confronted with the jungle-covered 
slopes of the steep mountains visible in the distance. The 
Admiral accepted the result with regret, for the story of the 
white-clothed warrior — the only Indian thus hampered 
who had been met with in the New World, so far — had 
revived his hope of meeting with indications of higher civ- 
ilization as he pursued his western journey. It is, indeed, 
permissible to question the absolute veracity of the Spanish 
sailor who made the discovery. It was a golden opportu- 
nity for the lonely tar to exercise his active Andalusian or 
Basque imagination, and he should be an exception to the 
class did he not, on meeting his comrades, draw with his 
tongue a bow far longer than the one he carried in his hand. 
Whether true or false, his tale gained a ready credence, and 
even in the Admiral's lifetime the solitary Indian in his 
alleged tunic had expanded into a whole race of white-robed 
Asiatics. As such it has been the subject of learned con- 
jecture and dissertation in our modern histories, and thus is 
likely to remain. We give the fact as Columbus related it 
in his lost journal, and as Las Casas copied it therefrom. 
Still following the coast towards the west, the squadron 

^ Las Casas describes these formidable weapons minutely, and says 
that the Cubans called them vtacanas. Similar arms, of the same 
name, are still common among the more warlike tribes of the Amazon 
Basin and Guiana, and constitute only one of the many links which 
bind their possessors to the Caribes of Columbus's day. 



174 ^'^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

came upon a village by the seashore, whose people swarmed 
out in their canoes to offer what they possessed in exchange 
for the strangers' trinkets. One of these natives was kept 
on board by the Spaniards, greatly to the distress of his 
companions and to his own evident alarm, in order to learn 
something of the country which seemed to stretch so inter- 
minably beyond them. From him the Admiral gathered 
that Cuba was an island, that the sea surrounded it on all 
sides, that an infinite number of smaller islands lay along its 
shores, and that, in the part of it which he had now reached, 
ruled a king who never spoke, but indicated his wishes by 
signs alone. Moreover, this mysterious potentate wore a 
long robe, and some faint hope suggested itself to the 
Admiral's mind that he might be that famous Prester John 
of whom such marvellous tales were told by the few Euro- 
peans who had penetrated Asia and Africa. The mere 
thought was enough to stimulate him to fresh effort, and he 
found in this part of his informant's story a conclusive refu- 
tation of that other part which affirmed the insular character 
of Cuba. Who had ever heard of an island in connection 
with this famous prince? Was he not known to rule in the 
very heart of Asia, — somewhere ? It was worth a struggle 
against every difficulty to reach such a goal. Continuing 
thus hopefully on his course, he shortly found his vessels 
entangled amid treacherous banks of sand, on one of which 
they grounded, despite the utmost caution. A scant fathom 
of water covered this bar, which was two ship's-lengths wide, 
and there was nothing to do but turn to and warp the cara- 
vels off their dangerous berth, if it might be done. The task 
was a difficult one, and for a season it seemed as though the 
disaster of the Christmas of '92 was to be repeated on a 
more fatal scale ; but at length the ships were hauled into 
deep water with no greater damage done than the starting 
of some seams. The voyage was resumed and the fleet 
again became entangled amid a maze of small islands and 
shoals. The Admiral noted with interest, despite his perils, 
the variety of animal life with which both air and water 
abounded in this curious archipelago. The shallow seas 
swarmed with fish and turtles ; dense flocks of pigeons and 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. 1 75 

doves passed overhead ; gulls and other marine birds circled 
about the vessels in countless numbers ; and, on one day, the 
air was literally filled from morning until night with myriads 
of gaudy butterflies drifting Cuba-wards in one of the vast 
migrations which herald the changing seasons. We know 
all about these things now, but to the sailors of the little 
fleet they were marvels. An " island " along one of whose 
shores they had been sailing for six weeks without changing 
their main direction ; a wilderness of shoals and islets, the 
like of which they had never so much as heard of; a sea as 
milk-white as that of the Carib Islands had been sapphire 
blue ; sea, land, and air filled with strange shapes in multi- 
tudes surpassing belief, and all these prodigies increasing in 
number and degree as the long westward journey continued, 
— such were the influences at work on the minds of the 
Admiral's companions as they slowly worked their vessels 
through the tortuous channels of the island groups which 
fringe the southwestern coasts of Cuba. 

With Columbus himself other considerations weighed 
heavily against his eager desire to set at rest the nature of the 
land he had been so patiently examining and the mysteries it 
contained. According to his computations he had sailed for 
more than 300 leagues towards the west from Cape Alpha 
and Omega, without discovering any indication of the coast 
turning northwards. He was now, he thought, 700 leagues 
west of Dominica, the most easterly of the new lands he had 
discovered. Who could conceive, under these circum- 
stances, that Cuba was other than the extremity of Asia? 
Who had ever imagined an island a thousand miles long, or 
an archipelago two thousand miles in width? Moreover, the 
coast was now trending more and more to the south, thus 
clearly demonstrating the fact that the country was expand- 
ing into continental proportions. What doubt remained 
that Hispaniola, Jamaica, Buriquen, and the isles of the 
Caribs were the gigantic islands said to lie east of Asia, and 
that Cuba was the easternmost province of that continent? 
He could, indeed, by proceeding on his voyage, add more 
leagues of coast to those already followed ; but they might, 
after all, add nothing to his knowledge, unless he were pre- 



176 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE AD AURAL. 

pared to prolong indefinitely his absence from Hispaniola, 
and this was far from being the case. In truth, he was 
already painfully anxious to return and inform himself of the 
welfare of the colony. It was time for some news to be 
arriving from Spain ; Margarite's expedition should be con- 
cluded by the time the squadron reached Isabella; the 
building of that town required attention, and, even more, 
its citizens. All these reflections, the Admiral says, caused him 
to pass days and nights of painful thought. Added to these 
were the facts that the ships were now dangerously bare of 
provisions of all kinds, that the men were gnmibling with 
ever-increasing audacity, and that further navigation toward 
the west seemed to offer only a succession of the same perils 
from which they had already more than once so narrowly 
escaped. To pursue the voyage, in face of these conditions, 
would be to risk more than would be justifiable. Had he 
consulted only his own inclinations, he would have followed 
the setting sun until he had — as he firmly beheved he 
should — reached Spain by circumnavigating the earth. So 
emphatic was his belief that he had only to skirt this pre- 
sumedly Asiatic coast for enough weeks and he should arrive 
at Cadiz, that he formulated his itinerary: "doubhng the 
Golden Chersonesus,^ crossing the Gulf of Ganges, and by a 
new route, either around Africa, or going up the Red Sea 
and so overland to Joppa and Jerusalem, reach Spain." 
The prospect was one of captivating brilliancy to a mind 
filled, as his was, with grand schemes of geographical ex- 
ploration and mystical dreams of ousting the Paynim from 
the Holy City. But this was not his present mission ; he 
had left Isabella to discover the true character of Cuba, and 
had established beyond all possibility of cavil that it was 
part of some mainland. That this was Asia was, in his 
opinion, a matter of course. His duty fulfilled, there was, 
consequently, every reason why he should sacrifice his own 
preferences and return to the colony at Isabella with all 
convenient speed. 

It was the consistent habit of Columbus to consult with 
his pilots and chief mariners on all occasions of crisis or 
^ The Malay Peninsula of our times. 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. 



177 



difficulty. We find him doing it frequently on the first 
voyage of discovery and all succeeding ones ; he did it now. 
His own belief was that Cuba was the eastern extremity of 
Asia ; he re-christened, in his diary, the cape formerly called 
Alpha and Omega — in symbolic reference to this faith — 
by the more emphatic title of " End of the Orient." Every 
indication, to his mind, confirmed this view. But some of 
the natives, both on the northern shore during his first voy- 
age and along this southern coast during the present one, 
had asserted, or seemed to assert, that Cuba was only an- 
other vast island. This, therefore, was the question which 
he determined to submit to his skilled companions : Was 
this land of Cuba, in their judgment, an island or not? 
They had seen all the other huge islands ; was this only 
another one? Their Majesties of Spain had repeatedly 
urged the Admiral to satisfy himself on this score, and re- 
port to them as fully as possible. It was essential, in their 
dispute with Portugal, that they should know whether their 
officer had indeed reached the eastern extension of the 
oriental continent. It consequently behooved Columbus 
to collect all the evidence he properly could on this vital 
point before ceasing his exploration. This he accordingly 
proceeded to do in the customary and established manner. 

Our readers will no doubt recall the extreme, almost ludi- 
crous, importance attached in all Spanish and most Latin 
countries to the solemn notarial acta. Among all but the 
most sophisticated, it is considered to rival the Tables of 
Stone in its imperative force and the Medean laws in its 
inviolability. Four hundred years ago it was even more 
revered than now ; and when, on the morning of Thursday, 
the 12th of June, 1494, the Admiral called upon the royal 
notary, Fernando Perez de Luna, to draw up an acta as to 
the general opinion prevalent in the fleet concerning Cuba, 
he was complying with one of the commonest formalities of 
his day and station. Nothing that he or any one else could 
say would have the weight of such a document, and the 
notary present on the flagship was there to obtain for the 
information of the Crown just such official depositions con- 
cerning matters open to dispute. The notary was directed, 



178 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

in this instance, to first take the declarations of the officers 
and crew of the "Niiia," and then proceed, in company 
with credible witnesses, to the " San Juan" and " Cordera," 
and take the opinions of those ships' companies. Before 
doing so he was obliged, by law, to read the demand or 
requisition made upon him by the Admiral, so that all who 
were questioned should have full knowledge of what they 
were expected to answer. As this portion of the paper 
contains the deliberate asseveration by sixty-five men, in- 
cluding some of the foremost navigators and seamen of the 
lime, that the island of Cuba was part of the continent of 
Asia, and as it gives the arguments which satisfied Colum- 
bus himself, it will bear translating. 

" On board the caravel '■ Nina,' which is also called the ' Santa 
Clara,' Thursday, the 12th of June, in the year of Our Lord's 
Birth 1494, the most noble Senor Don Christopher Columbus, 
High Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Viceroy and Perpetual Gov- 
ernor of the island of San Salvador and of all the other islands 
and mainland of the Indies, discovered or to be discovered, etc., 
etc., demanded of me, Fernando Perez de Luna, one of the no- 
taries public of the city of Isabella, on behalf of their Majesties, 
[to bear witness] : 

'■'■ That he had sailed from the said city of Isabella with three 
caravels to come and discover the mainland of the Indies ; for, 
although he had already discovered a part of it on the other 
voyage which he made here the last year of our Lord, 1493 \_sic\, 
he was not able to learn definitely concerning it, since, notwith- 
standing that he had remained a long time upon its coasts, he 
found nobody who could give him positive information, as all 
the people were naked, having no property or society, being a 
folk who do not go away from their homes and are visited by 
none others, according to what he was told by themselves ; for 
which reason he did then not affirm positively that it was the 
mainland, but pronounced the matter doubtful and called the 
country Juana in memory of Prince John, our sovereign ; 

" That he has now sailed from the said city of Isabella on the 
24th of April and arrived at that part of the said country of 
Juana which lies nearest to the island of Isabella \jic\ and which 
is shaped like a gore running from east to west, with the point 
at the end towards Isabella, from which it is twenty-two leagues 
distant ; that he has followed the coast of this country towards the 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. \'jc^ 

west, on the side of the south, to reach a very large island called 
Jamaica by the Indians, and has found it after sailing a great 
distance ; that he named this the island of Santiago and fol- 
lowed its whole coast from east to west, returning afterwards to 
the mainland, which he calls Juana, at the place whence he had 
departed ; that he followed the coast of this latter country west- 
ward for many days, until he declares that, by his rules of navi- 
gation, he has sailed more than 335 leagues from the time he 
first struck it until now ; that on this course he has recognized 
many times, and so proclaimed, that this was the mainland, both 
because of its shape and of the information he has acquired con- 
cerning it and the name of the people of the provinces, espe- 
cially the province of Mango ; that now, after having found 
countless islands, which no one can accurately number, and 
arrived here at a village, he has taken several Indians who have 
told him that the coast of this country continues toward the 
west for more than twenty days' journey, and they do not know 
whether it ends even there ; that from that point he determined 
to continue on somewhat farther, so that the people on these 
vessels — among whom are masters skilled in sailing by the 
charts and very good pilots, the most famous which he could 
choose from among those of the large fleet he brought from 
Spain — should see how very great is this country and that 
from here its coast runs toward the south, as he had told them ; 
that he therefore sailed on for four days' journey more, so that 
all might be very sure that it was terra firma, — for in all these 
islands and countries there is no town on the seashore, but only 
naked people who live upon fish, who never go inland, or even 
four leagues from their houses, or know what the world is like 
but believe that it is made up of islands, — a race without law 
or belief of any kind, except to be born and die, and who have 
no education by which they may learn aught of the world ; 

" Therefore, in order that when this voyage is finished no one 
shall have cause through malice either to speak evil or slight- 
ingly of things which deserve great credit, the said Admiral has 
required of me, the said notary, as above recited, on behalf of 
their Majesties, that I should go personally, with faithful wit- 
nesses, on board each of the said three caravels, and should 
demand of the master and crew and all other persons who are 
aboard them that they publicly declare whether they have any 
doubt that this is the mainland at the beginning of the Indies, 
or its end for any one who should desire to come into these 
parts overland from Spain ; and, if there should be among them 
any doubt or contrary belief, that I should ask them to declare 



l80 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

it, so that it might be set at rest, and they should be shown that 
this is true and that it is indeed the mainland. And I have thus 
done and have demanded publicly," etc. 

The notary then recites in detail the question he put to 
each officer or sailor individually, and their sworn answers. 
To quote one of these replies, for all : — 

" The pilots, masters, and seamen, after studying their sea 
charts, reflected and said as follows : Francisco Nifio, townsman 
of Moguer, pilot of the caravel ' Nifia,' declares by the oath he 
has taken that he has never heard of or seen an island which 
could be 335 leagues in length on one coast, from west to east, 
and its exploration even not yet ended ; that he sees now the 
coast turning S.SW., West, and SW., and assuredly has no 
doubt that this is the mainland, and no island ; and that before 
going many leagues along this coast a country would be found 
where civilized people live, who know what the world is," etc. 

The master of the " Niiia," Alonzo Medel, Juan de la 
Cosa, her famous chart navigator, and seventeen seamen 
and sailors made similar affirmation. So did Bartolome 
Perez, pilot of the " San Juan," Alonzo Perez Roldan, her 
master, and Alonzo Rodriguez, her first mate, together with 
twelve of their crew. So did Cristobal Perez Nirio, master, 
Fenerin Ginoves, mate, and Gonzalo Alonzo Galeote, chief 
seaman, of the " Cordera," with all of her crew, to say 
nothing of the half-dozen witnesses. The name, birth- 
place, and station of each deponent are given, and each in 
his turn makes a declaration identical with that of the 
" Nifia's " pilot ; and at no subsequent time, even when 
such assertion would have brought profit and applause, did 
any one of them claim that he had been deceived by 
Columbus. 

So far as such a "round robin" could have weight, this 
was one without a flaw. It was not the first of its kind, as 
its cut and dried phraseology abundantly indicates ; it surely 
was not the last, for even comparatively modern voyagers 
have availed themselves of much the same kind of con- 
sensus. But it was proposed by Columbus and prepared 
for him, and, hence, in the judgment of his critics, bristles 
with fraud, hypocrisy, and tyranny. The notary, in closing 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. l8l 

his formal period, invokes the ancient penalties for per- 
jury : " and I have imposed the fine of 10,000 maravedies 
for each time that any one should in the future say the con- 
trary of what he now swears, and he shall have his tongue 
cut out ; and if he is a sailor or person of that class he shall 
receive a hundred lashes and also have his tongue cut out." 
The Admiral had nothing to do with this ostensibly san- 
guinary provision ; the notary included it in his acta as an 
obligatory recitation. He threatened to mutilate the per- 
jurers, not Columbus. Just how he was going to cut out 
their tongues the second time is not clear, or how they were 
to repeat their offence when already tongueless. Nor does 
it matter that the whole threat was an empty piece of what 
the Spaniards would term "of course," — a relic of still ruder 
days to which no one paid less heed than did the worthy 
notary, who was obliged to paddle from one ship to another, 
between the showers, to take the tiresome testimony of 
these wooden-headed mariners from Palos, Huelva, Moguer, 
and every port between Fuentarabia and Rosas Gulf. It 
was enough that the acta was in support of the Admiral's 
own convictions and hopes for it to excite a tempest of 
denunciation among his recent censors. In using this means 
of certification, we are told " Columbus committed himself 
to the last resort of deluded minds when dealing with geo- 
graphical or historical problems." His conduct was " auda- 
cious and arrogant." He " forced his men to sign a paper 
expressing the same belief" as he held concerning Cuba, 
and so on, and so on.^ We may admit, without argument, 
that Columbus did vacillate sadly on this point ; that some- 
times he understood the Indians to say that Cuba was an 
island, and gave them unwilling credence ; and again gath- 
ered with joy from their gestures and jargon that it was of 
boundless extent, and earnestly impressed upon all about 
him this supposed confirmation of his own hopes. Beyond 
all dispute, had he possessed a reliable atlas of the West 
Indies and the American continent, such hesitation would 

^ Yet these same writers see nothing to criticise in the same claim 
when made by Cabot two years later, who believed that he had seen 
the shores of Tartary when off Labrador. 



1 82 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

have implied great mental obtuseness, and his endeavor to 
persuade others that Cuba was the mainland of Asia would 
have merited most of the violent criticism it has received. 
But, under the circumstances as they existed, there really 
seems to have been a reasonable excuse for his course ; and 
those of my readers who have tried to gain an exact knowl- 
edge of their surroundings, among untrodden wilds or un- 
navigated waters, from savages speaking an only partially 
comprehensible tongue, will sympathize rather with the 
Admiral in his dilemmas than with his critics. 

While these depositions were being recorded by the 
notary the three caravels were lying at anchor at the west- 
ern extremity of what we now call the Gulf of Batabano 
on the southwestern coast of Cuba. From the repeated 
references in the acta and elsewhere to the direction taken 
by the prolongation of this coast as seen from the vessels, 
Humboldt has established with his customary acumen the 
fact that they were in all probability then lying in the iden- 
tical bay which Cortez, in 15 19, appointed as the rendezvous 
for his armada and whence he sailed upon his expedition 
against Mexico. Columbus himself, at one time, was almost 
persuaded that it was the veritable Gulf of the Ganges, on 
account of its myriad islands. It proved to be the western 
limit of his present voyage, for on the following day, June 
13th, influenced by the motives we have stated, he reluctantly 
abandoned the prosecution of his westward cruise and led 
the way toward the south, with the intent of escaping the 
tangle of shoals and islands in which he was involved and 
finding an open sea for his eastward run back to Hispaniola. 
He steered first for an island of greater size than its fellows, 
where he provided his vessels with wood, water, and such 
poor supplies of native food as it might afford. To this 
island he gave the name of Evangelista, but it stands on 
our maps as the Isle of Pines. After leaving it, the vessels 
slowly felt there way for ten days through a maze of blind 
leads, now grounding, now threatened with wreck on some 
bank to leeward in the sudden squalls of the afternoons, 
until the crews became disheartened and sullen, and their 
commander could with difficulty infuse into them any of his 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. 1 83 

own persistent courage. At the end of this time they had 
to return baffled to EvangeHsta and make a fresh start. 
They succeeded now in getting clear of the tortuous chan- 
nels, but found themselves in shallow seas whose unfamiliar 
colors, — vivid green, milky white, inky black, — shifting 
with startling abruptness and frequency, added a new terror 
to the sailors' minds in their constant menace of imminent 
destruction. On the 30th of June, while the Admiral was 
writing in his cabin, his flagship drove hard and fast on a 
shoal. So firmly was she held by the greedy sands that 
the staunch little " Nina " wellnigh shared the fate of her 
quondam consort, the " Santa Maria " ; but by dint of much 
ingenuity and exertion she was lifted over the narrow bank 
and launched in safety on the farther side, with her timbers 
badly sprung from the merciless pounding to which her hull 
had been subjected. Soon after they made the Cuban 
coast at the point from which they had sailed after return- 
ing from Jamaica, and thence proceeded eastwards along- 
shore. At one place, where a native village was built close 
to the beach, the Admiral landed to hear Mass on Sunday, 
July 6th. An old cacique, who watched with keen interest 
the white men's ceremonies, at their conclusion offered 
Columbus a calabash filled with fruits as a token of amity. 
Squatting then upon his heels, he made an address to the 
Admiral which Diego, the interpreter, translated into as 
philosophical a disquisition on immortality and the future 
life as Socrates delivered in prison. To this his auditor 
replied in becoming phrase, agreeing in the main with his 
theological propositions and explaining that his own motive 
in visiting Cuba and the adjacent islands was to benefit their 
inhabitants, especially by ridding them of their dreaded 
Carib invaders. We are informed that the venerable chief- 
tain received these assurances with tears of joy, and the affect- 
ing incident was brought to a close by a brisk interchange 
of gifts. What the old Indian really did say it is, of course, 
idle to conjecture ; but we may safely assume that it was 
not the Platonic discourse which the interpreter supposed, 
and which has excited so much edifying commentary from 
the days of Peter Martyr down. 



1 84 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

After leaving this anchorage, the fleet encountered a suc- 
cession of gales which nearly ended its career. The seas 
continually shipped by the little vessels, especially over the 
low freeboard they presented amidships, kept all hands toil- 
ing at the pumps ; while the scanty rations were still further 
reduced until each man's daily allowance, except when a 
few fish could be caught, was a pound of spoiled biscuit and 
a half-pint of watered wine. These harassing experiences 
persisted until the i8th of July, when the voyagers arrived 
at the Cape of the Cross, where the natives supplied them 
abundantly with cassava, fruits, and fish. After resting here 
two or three days, the Admiral resumed his homeward 
cruise, only to be met with such stubborn headwinds that 
he was blown off his course and was glad to make for the 
western extremity of Jamaica. The occasion being propi- 
tious, he decided to sail around this island, and accord- 
ingly doubled its western cape and followed its coast toward 
the south and east. After the fatigues and perils of the 
past weeks, the Admiral and his companions fairly revelled 
in the majestic beauty of the varied panorama which un- 
folded as they swept along the apparently well-peopled 
shores. The natives thronged in their canoes from bay 
and headland, proffering the Spaniards food and fruits " as 
though they all were the fathers and the Indians their sons." 
The Admiral himself, freed from his recent distressing cares, 
allows his love of Nature to have full play, and dwells with 
delight on the fertility of the soil, the numbers and frank 
disposition of the inhabitants, and the evident comfort in 
which they lived. He notes that some of the loftiest moun- 
tains seem to attain a height sufficient to ensure snows in 
the proper season, and attributes the heavy rains he encoun- 
tered to the dense and extensive forests which clothed their 
flanks ; " for in the past the same thing happened in the 
Canaries, Madeira, and the Azores," he remarks ; "but after 
the forests had been cut down and the vapors were dried up 
and dispersed, the heavy rainfalls in great measure came to 
an end." 

Landing frequently as he pursued his voyage, and main- 
taining the most cordial relations with the Indians every- 



IDENTIFYING ASIA. 



185 



where, he reached the eastern extremity of Jamaica on the 
19th of August, and called it Beacon Cape. The wind serv- 
ing for Hispaniola, he put out to sea at once, and on the 
following day was in sight of the western point of that 
island, which he christened Cape St. Michael and we know 
as Tiburon. 




X. 

THE REVOLT OF THE TRIBES. 

WHEN he bestowed its name on Cape St. Michael, the 
Admiral did not know that it was part of Hispan- 
iola; it was so far to the west and south of Cape St. Nicholas 
that he at first thought it was part of another island. But 
as he lay at anchor, the day after making land, a canoe- 
load of Indians came alongside the flagship and their leader 
called out "Admiral, Admiral," in good Spanish, following 
the words with a flood of native gutturals. Columbus was 
hugely delighted at this occurrence, for he gathered there- 
from not only that he was again in Hispaniola, but that, in 
his absence, the expedition he had sent out under Margarite 
had penetrated to the western confines of the island and, as 
he presumed, met with no opposition. He determined to 
sail along the southern coast, rather than return by the 
northern route around Cape St. Nicholas, and, if the winds 
served, make a descent on the chief villages of the cannibals 
in Guadalupe and Dominica for the purpose of impressing 
them with the power of the Spanish arms. This project was 
doubtless based upon the expectation that by this season the 
Carib men should have returned from the forays on which 
they had gone when he landed on their islands a year be- 
fore, and that it would redound greatly to the credit of the 
Spaniards, in the estimation of the other native tribes, if 
such a lesson were inflicted upon their dreaded invaders. 
That he should have contemplated doing anything of the 
sort with the petty force at his disposal is a striking instance 
of the supreme confidence the Europeans felt, both then and 



THE REVOLT OF THE TRIBES. \%j 

always, in their superiority over the aborigines of the west- 
ern world. Coasting leisurely to the eastward and studying 
the country as he passed, the Admiral reached on the 30th 
of August a lonely islet, which he called Alta Vela, from a 
fancied resemblance to a hoisted sail. Here he had to wait 
a week for his two consorts, which had become separated 
from him by a sudden tempest. Thence they passed to an 
island he called Beata, which is off the point of the same 
name about midway between Capes Tiburon and Engafio. 
From here he sailed into the Bay of Azua, whose level shores 
opened into wide and thickly populated savannahs corre- 
sponding closely with the great Vega Real on the northern 
coast. Wherever the fleet touched the natives came off in 
their canoes with gifts and friendly greetings, and from them 
the Admiral learned much concerning the condition of the 
colony at Isabella and the extent to which the scouting-par- 
ties had scoured the country. One band of Spaniards, it 
appeared, had come overland from Isabella to the very coasts 
where the fleet now was; so when he reached the River 
Hayna, not far from the present city of San Domingo, the 
Admiral landed a detachment of nine men, who were to 
cross the country to Isabella, bearing news of his welfare 
and intended early arrival at that port. The tidings given 
him by the Indians respecting the colony were uniformly 
favorable, so that his anxieties as to what had befallen it 
since his departure were to a great extent relieved. 

Without further incident of interest the southeastern end 
of Hispaniola was reached, but here the voyagers met with 
a reception much like that the Admiral had suffered in Sam- 
ana Bay on the first voyage. When the ships' boats landed 
for water the natives poured down upon the Spaniards, 
brandishing their bows and lances and shaking cords to inti- 
mate that they would capture and bind the strangers if they 
approached. By the display of gifts and a friendly dispo- 
sition a conflict was averted, and when the Indians learned 
that it was the Guamiquina in person who was on their 
shores they hastened to bring food and water in abundance 
with every indication of cordiality. P'rom their warlike 
bearing and superior weapons, as compared with the tribes 



1 88 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

farther west, and especially from their possession of poi- 
soned arrows, Columbus argued that they were of the same 
hardy clan as the courageous warriors of Samana, and treated 
them with marked consideration. It is worth noting, in 
turn, that although only four months had elapsed since he 
had left Isabella, and the colony had not more than four or 
five hundred men who were capable of undertaking any 
severe exertion, the Spaniards had spread so far beyond the 
narrow radius of forty or fifty miles, within which they had 
moved up to the time of the Admiral's leaving them, that 
on his return he found his title and power recognized from 
one end of the island to the other, a distance of four hun- 
dred miles. Had their energy been governed by a policy 
in which humanity and wisdom were one, the white men 
would have made a different history for the noble islands 
they so easily overran. 

Leaving the pacified inhabitants of Higuey, — for so 
their territory was termed, — the fleet made for Cape En- 
gano, — or, as Columbus had christened it in June of '94, 
Cape St. Raphael, — intending to steer thence for Porto 
Rico and the Carib Islands before returning to Isabella. 
From various indications of sea and sky, and especially 
from the excited antics of a huge devil-fish which rose to 
the surface and threw itself about in a frenzied manner, 
the Admiral anticipated severe weather and accordingly 
sought for a haven. The rising storm separated the vessels, 
but the " Niiia " found shelter under the lee of Saona Island, 
off the southeastern extremity of Hispaniola. The gale 
and subsequent contrary winds lasted a week, at the end of 
which time the "San Juan" and "Cordera" rejoined their 
consort, a good deal the worse for the buffeting they had 
received. While lying at anchor Columbus succeeded in 
taking a satisfactory observation of an eclipse of the moon, 
which occurred on the 15th of September. From the ele- 
ments thus secured he deduced the calculation that there 
was a difference of five hours and twenty-three minutes in 
time between his position and Cadiz. To this eclipse, with 
an admixture of astronomy and meteorology characteristic 
of the day, he also attributed the duration and violence of 



THE REVOLT OF THE TRIBES. 189 

the tempest which had overtaken him, — a conclusion in 
which he was no doubt supported by the Ephemerides from 
which his data were derived. From Saona the fleet steered 
for Cape Engano and thence passed to the island of Mona, 
about midway between Hispaniola and Porto Rico. From 
Mona a course was laid for the latter island, and the vessels 
had all but reached its coast when, without any premonition 
of the approaching calamity, the Admiral was stricken with 
a profound coma and fell to the deck as though dead. Flis 
affrighted companions gave him such attention as they 
thought efificacious, but he lay in such a lifeless stupor that 
they did not expect to see him survive the day. In this 
emergency they put about ships and headed again for the 
shores of Hispaniola. Their commander continued in the 
same deathlike trance for day after day, without a movement 
or sign of intelligence, as they rounded the Samana Point 
and steered for Isabella; and when, on the 29th of Septem- 
ber, the three caravels entered that harbor and came to 
anchor below the town, it was little better than a corpse that 
Don Diego Columbus and his newly arrived brother, Don 
Bartholomew, found when they hastened to greet the Admiral 
and Viceroy. For two and thirty nights in succession this 
indefatigable sailor had kept the deck in the perilous navi- 
gation among the Cuban shoals, besides sharing by day the 
labors of his shipmates and their scanty fare. The constant 
demands upon his attention and interest when coasting 
Jamaica and Hispaniola had prevented his getting any ade- 
quate rest later on. Now Nature had imposed her inevita- 
ble penalty, and it was an open question whether or not he 
* should be spared the distresses of the future years by ending 
his career then and there. 

Had he never regained consciousness, but passed away 
in the narrow cabin of the "Nina" or in his half-com- 
pleted "palace" at Isabella, the fame of Columbus would, 
perhaps, have been none the less, while the limitations of 
his character would not have been so sharply defined as 
they were by subsequent events. The close of this cruise 
to Cuba and Jamaica marked, in fact, a distinct epoch in 
the Admiral's life. It rounded off his discoveries of the 



1 90 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

colossal islands to which the older world, in its confusion 
of ideas, variously referred as Antillia, the parts of India 
beyond the Ganges, Ophir, and Cipango. He had set at 
rest the fluctuating speculations which the Middle Ages had 
inherited from Antiquity, and fitted the missing half of our 
sphere to the one with which mankind was familiar. We 
say advisedly that he had done this, for had his life closed 
in September, 1494, any one of the pilots, masters, or mari- 
ners who had manned the fleet he brought from Spain 
could, and some of them would, have found the continent 
which lay so near. This was the inevitable sequel to the 
work Columbus had already performed. Nothing but the 
absolute and contemporaneous annihilation of every soul 
who had accompanied him could now prevent such a con- 
summation. From Dominica to Jamaica and the western 
end of Cuba the Caribbean Sea was open to the Spaniards, 
and they had heard from scores of sources that populous 
and wealthy countries lay to the south, west, and north. 
Here were both direction and inducement. It was merely 
a question of a year or two, more or less, when some one 
should reach these goals. The Indians made the passage 
in their great canoes, and what they did with paddles surely 
Europeans might be expected to do with sails. In a word, 
the book was open for whomsoever had the desire and the 
means to read. Whether Columbus was right or wrong in 
conjecturing Hayti to be Cipango, and Cuba the Asiatic 
mainland, was immaterial. When his three caravels sailed 
into the port of Isabella with their unconscious comman- 
der, all that was essential in the problem of western naviga- 
tion had been solved. An otherwise niggard fate did, ■ 
indeed, later on, allow the Admiral to be the actual dis- 
coverer of the southern continent, as he had been of the 
great western world of which it was a part; but from our 
point of view his discovery of Paria was only an interest- 
ing incident in his career, not an element of his fame. 

Several days elapsed before Columbus regained the full 
use of his faculties. When he was able to recognize those 
about him, and saw in their number the stalwart form of 
his brother Bartholomew, his joy knew no bounds; for this 



THE REVOLT OF THE TRIBES. 191 

was a man after his own heart. The last time the brothers 
had met was in the trying days when, wearied with his 
ineffectual efforts to obtain the assistance of the Spanish 
Crown, Columbus turned to the other courts of Europe for 
the aid he needed to prosecute his plans of discovery. At 
that season Bartholomew had undertaken to present the 
project to the English king, Henry VII., and had parted 
from Christopher with that intention. How and where he 
had been delayed during the intervening years is largely 
matter for conjecture, and is not germane to our narrative. 
He was, at all events, in London when he heard of his 
brother's return to Spain from his first voyage. Making 
such speed as he could to rejoin him, Bartholomew reached 
Seville only to find that the Admiral had already sailed on 
his second expedition. That there was some communica- 
tion, however infrequent and unreliable (as the times com- 
pelled), between the two brothers, is shown by the fact that 
he found letters awaiting him from the Admiral, indicating 
what course he should pursue. In compliance with these 
he presented himself before the King and Queen, by whom 
he was graciously received, and commanded to follow the 
Admiral in a squadron of three caravels which was leisurely 
being fitted out to carry supplies and despatches to the 
colony. These vessels sailed from Cadiz towards the end 
of April, 1494, and reached Isabella early in August, long 
after the Admiral had left on his Cuban cruise. During 
the seven weeks which passed between his arrival and the 
return of the Admiral, Bartholomew had ample oppor- 
tunity to learn from his younger brother Diego all that had 
occurred since the colonists had reached Hispaniola. 
Being a man of affairs and action, devoted to his brother's 
interests, prudent, well-poised, and coolly courageous, his 
presence was an inestimable advantage to the Admiral, and 
no doubt contributed more than anything else to furnish 
to the latter the moral stimulus needed to overcome the 
physical collapse into which he had fallen. 

Equally grateful to the disabled leader were the de- 
spatches which Bartholomew had brought from the King 
and Queen. The squadron in which he came was on the 



192 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

point of leaving Cadiz when, on the loth of April, the 
twelve vessels commanded by Antonio de Torres sailed 
into port on their return from Hispaniola, bearing the first 
tidings which had been received from the colony. The 
three caravels were accordingly detained until Torres could 
send to their Majesties the budget with which he had been 
entrusted by their Admiral and Viceroy. The news only 
emphasized the necessity of hastening forward the provi- 
sions and supplies with which the squadron was laden, and 
it was hurried away as soon as a few short letters could be 
written and some slight additions made to its cargo. 
Ferdinand and Isabella did not wait to receive the detailed 
reports which Torres was preparing to deliver in person, 
but contented themselves with sending a short message of 
sympathy and encouragement, with the promise of longer 
correspondence and more abundant supplies by another 
squadron which should be fitted out immediately. Few 
as were the words Don Bartholomew brought from the 
sovereigns, they were more efificacious than a cordial to the 
exhausted and anxious Admiral. 

'• In much esteem and consideration we hold you," their Majes- 
ties wrote, "for what you have done out yonder, which could not 
be better. . . . Rest assured that we deem ourselves to be greatly 
served and laid under obligation by yovi on account of it, and 
bound to render you thanks, honor, and advancement, as your 
great services demand and merit. . . . There is no time now to 
reply as we would wish, but when the other squadron goes, we 
shall answer and provide for everything by it, as may be needed. 
We have been displeased by the things which have been done 
out yonder in opposition to your wishes. By the first vessels 
which come here send Bernal de Pisa, to whom we have written 
that he get his affairs in shape to leave. In the office which he 
has filled place the person whom to you and Fray Boil should 
seem best, until other arrangements can be made from here." 

This association with himself of the meddlesome priest 
may have seemed to the Admiral to be an invasion of his 
prerogatives; but it was not, under the circumstances, a 
matter of moment. The wily churchman had already 
gathered his robes around him and shaken the rich mould 
of Hispaniola from his sandals. 



THE REVOLT OF THE TRIBES. 193 

Columbus had double cause for self-congratulation upon 
his brother's arrival when he heard of what had occurred at 
Isabella and throughout the island during his absence; for a 
strong hand, quick understanding, and inflexible will were 
needed to prevent the complete disintegration of the Span- 
ish colony and preserve its authority among the native tribes. 
As he listened to the discouraging reports and reflected 
upon his own inability to leave his couch, the one consola- 
tion he possessed lay in the thought that he had at last by 
his side a deputy whose loyalty was beyond suspicion and 
whose energy was equal to his own. The tale that was 
poured into his ears was enough to have shaken the spirit of 
the strongest; that it did not break his own, in his enfeebled 
state, is evidence, if any were needed, of the indomitable 
courage which was his most salient characteristic. The 
troubles had their origin, it appeared, with Margarite. In- 
stead of carrying out the Admiral's written instructions and 
pursuing a systematic course of pacific exploration, this 
officer, as soon as the commander-in-chief had sailed from 
Isabella, had marched back with all his forces from Cibao 
into the Vega Real and quartered himself upon the hospit- 
able inhabitants of that favored region. Far from investi- 
gating the rugged interior and leading a demonstration 
against the warriors of Caonabo, Margarite had abandoned 
himself to the agreeable idleness of a life where he was 
reverenced as a god and anticipated in every wish by a 
confiding and attractive people. Like master, like man : 
his 400 soldiers, or the greater part of them, each chose 
such village or household as to him seemed best, installed 
himself as a deity, inferior, indeed, to the great central 
divinity, but yet a god, established his own harem, and 
ruled over his own band of obsequious and somewhat 
frightened drudges. Viceroy, King, Queen, Spain, Isa- 
bella, Caonabo, — all these were but words to jeer at; Mar- 
garite and his merry men were leading the life of the Golden 
Age and recked nothing of the morrow. The inevitable 
consequences followed a license which knew no shame and a 
despotism which feared no restraint. The Indians saw 
their homes violated, their little stores of food squandered, 

13 



194 ^^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

themselves abused, and their fellows murdered, until their 
Pantheon of bearded gods rapidly developed into a vei itable 
Pandemonium of insatiable tyrants. Unaccustomed to ac- 
cumulating provision for the future, the natives soon were 
unable to supply the apparently fabulous requirements of 
their now unwelcome guests for all kinds of food; scarcity 
brought renewed ill-treatment and violence, in which the 
caciques and their King himself were menaced with outrage 
and torture. Gentle and simple-minded as the people were, 
they began to resent a treatment which threatened their very 
existence. Rumors of their disaffection reached the sur- 
rounding and more vigorous tribes of the mountains, and 
they agitated the question of making common cause with 
the plainsmen. The situation began to be grave, and the 
Council which represented the Viceroy in his absence felt 
called upon to remonstrate with Margarite for the course 
he was following. That high-spirited cavalier furiously re- 
sented their interference, scorned their remonstrance, and 
defied their authority in their own seat at Isabella. In this 
proceeding he was abetted, either openly or covertly, by 
Fray Boil and those who had sided with him and Bernal de 
Pisa in their earlier disputes with the Admiral. The towns- 
people were for the most part indisposed toward the govern- 
ment on general principle; the Council was utterly unable 
to enforce its requirements, and was, moreover, divided as 
to these. At this juncture the three caravels arrived from 
Spain, bringing fresh supplies and another foreign inter- 
loper in the person of Don Bartholomew Columbus. Per- 
haps Margarite and his faction gauged the man at once and 
saw that they had to deal with some one of a very different 
type from mild Don Diego; perhaps some sort of a com- 
promise was reached by which the Admiral's brothers and 
their colleagues were glad to get rid of the malcontents.-^ 
At all events, as soon as the three ships were unloaded they 

1 That the loyal majority of the Council retained some control of 
affairs is exhibited by the retention of Bernal Diaz de Pisa at Isabella, 
under restraint. Had the malcontents been as powerful as some have 
claimed, they would surely have taken with them to Spain this invalu- 
able witness against the Admiral. 



THE REVOLT OF THE TRIBES. 



195 



were despatched again to Cadiz, and with them sailed 
Margarite, Fray Boil, nearly all his priests, and a goodly 
number of their sympathizers. Hispaniola was well rid of 
the whole connection, but they had only transferred their 
intrigues to the other side of the Atlantic, and were to be 
heard from again later on. The colony at Isabella was 
relieved by their departure and a quieter feeling prevailed 
than at any time since its foundation; but a contrary effect 
was produced among the soldiers who were living at ease 
in the hamlets of the Vega Real. Conscious of the motive 
and method of Margarite's defection, and sensible of the 
inability of the Council to control their actions, they aban- 
doned all idea of discipline, and, breaking up into bands of 
greater or less size, wandered in whatever direction fancy 
dictated. Several parties made their way across country 
into the adjacent territories of Guacanagari; others went 
into the sierras of Cibao in search of gold ; still others struck 
across the island to its southern shores ; others yet drifted 
towards the east into the confines of Higuey: and so they 
went their several ways until they had emerged at the widely 
separated points where their traces had been found by the 
Admiral. They had, indeed, explored the island, but with 
far different results from those he had anticipated. Where- 
ever they had gone there had been pillage, rapine, cruelty. 
What they coveted they took by force; what they wanted 
done they secured by violence. Presuming on their own 
prowess and despising the native feebleness, they became 
increasingly heedless of all consequences, until they placed 
themselves in the power of the people they were goading to 
desperation. News began to reach the colony of ambushes 
and massacres. Guatiguana, cacique of a large village on 
the Yaqui, quietly put ten Spaniards out of the way at one 
stroke, and then set fire to a cabin wherein several more lay 
disabled by sickness. Other petty chiefs were glad to fol- 
low his lead, and here two or three, there half a dozen 
" Christians " were despatched. Rumors of these notable 
deeds circulated among the tribes and inspired the more 
warlike chieftains to efforts at emulation, until a concerted 
movement was set on foot, led by Caonabo, Mayrionex, and 



196 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

two equally prominent native kings, to clear the whole 
island of the now abhorred strangers. 

This was the position of affairs as described to the Ad- 
miral when he had recovered sufficiently to hear it: the 
native population was aroused to open hostility from one 
end of the island to the other; his soldiers scattered from 
Samana Bay to Cape St. Nicholas; no gold collected; no 
fortresses established; his enemies on their way to Court to 
undermine his reputation, — and he helpless on his back in 
the grip of a disease which threatened to hold him prisoner 
for many a weary week. While he was considering the 
measures to be adopted for the restoration of the Spanish 
authority and the prosecution of his plans, he was visited 
by Guacanagari, who had heard of the Admiral's illness 
and had come from his own territory to confer with his 
former ally. This action of itself dispelled all doubts which 
might still have existed in the mind of Columbus as to the 
King's loyalty, and his confidence was further strengthened 
by the motive of the present visit. Guacanagari said that 
he had given shelter and protection to 100 Spaniards who 
had sought his assistance when the other caciques began 
to make reprisals upon the white men; that Caonabo and 
his associates had resented this as an act of treachery to 
the other tribes and had harried his country, slain his sub- 
jects, and in every way endeavored to force him to abandon 
the Spaniards and join his countrymen in warring upon 
them; that notwithstanding this persecution he was firm in 
his intention to maintain his alliance with the Admiral and 
to lend him every support in his power. Coming, as it did, 
at a moment when the whole aspect of his relations with the 
natives was so gloomy, this tender of cooperation was 
heartily welcome. Columbus explained to his old friend 
that as soon as he was well he should go to attack the hostile 
tribes and would gladly avail of Guacanagari 's proffered 
help, in return for which the Spaniards would chastise his 
enemies and he "be rewarded for his fidelity. With his 
knowledge of the inoffensive character of the people of 
Marien, the Admiral could not have attached great impor- 
tance to their military efficiency, but it was something 



THE REVOLT OF THE TRIBES. 197 

gained if even a single tribe stood out in favor of the 
"Christians" when the whole island was in arms against 
them. The situation was in truth serious enough. The 
whole effective strength of the Spaniards at his disposal 
did not exceed 400 men, a large proportion of whom 
were rather invalids than sound soldiers. Besides these 
were small groups scattered, if not lost, throughout the 
country, and the garrison of Fort St. Thomas, which Hojeda 
still held with fifty or sixty men. Against this paltry force 
was arraying the entire fighting population of the central 
portion of the island, armed, it is true, with nothing better 
than bows and arrows, wooden spears, and heavy wooden 
swords, but formidable by reason of their numbers. How 
many really were mustering at the call of Caonabo and his 
associates there is no means of knowing, but it was an 
immense horde. The position of the colonists seemed 
desperate and Columbus found in Hojeda a man who would 
assume corresponding risks to relieve it. With nine mounted 
companions he undertook to execute the suspended project 
of seizing Caonabo, who was regarded by all, Europeans as 
well as natives, as the head of the whole insurrection. Rid- 
ing far into this king's territory, overawing the Indians on 
the road by his formidable display of the terrible new ani- 
mals, — half man, half great quadruped, — Hojeda succeeded 
in gaining possession of Caonabo and brought him safely to 
Isabella. One account says he cajoled the King into accom- 
panying him by promising that the Spaniards would make 
him lord over the whole island. Another, on the correct- 
ness of which Las Casas insists, attributes Hojeda' s success 
to the exhibition by him before Caonabo of a brightly 
polished chain and handcuffs of the coveted hard metal to 
which the Indians attributed a divine origin. They took 
its clanking to be the voice of the deity speaking to the 
white men, it appears; for they had remarked th'=". signs of 
reverence which the colonists showed when the A ngelus rang 
out from the little bell in Isabella, and the readiness with 
which they gathered around it when it sounded for Mass. 
This, the natives believed, was because the white men's god 
was talking to them, and that the divine gift was common to 



198 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

all their strange metal. Hence, so goes the story, the offer 
of a brilliant and jangling chain of the celestial material 
was bait suiificient to separate the native King from his 
surrounding people and lure him to a distance, where the 
tempting links were quickly and safely attached to his 
limbs. When we consider the part taken by this same chief 
in the existing uprising, and, in particular, his reasons for 
distrusting the captain whose fort he had so lately been 
besieging, it is ditificult to reconcile these stories with the 
probabilities, especially as a third version relates that Cao- 
nabo was taken prisoner in a skirmish. In whatever man- 
ner it was accomplished, the warrior King did become the 
Spaniards' prisoner and was securely confined at Isabella.-^ 
Having thus disposed of his most formidable opponent, 
the Admiral sent out an expedition against Guatiguana, 
the cacique who had caused the massacre of ten Spaniards 
and the burning of many more. The results were as might 
be expected when matchlock, cross-bow, and keen-edged 
blades were used by mail-clad veterans against naked levies 
armed with bone-tipped arrows and wooden assegais. No 
particular harm was done the Spaniards, while the Indians 
were shot and cut down in numbers which it was too trou- 
blesome to estimate. Their cacique escaped, but some 
500 of his followers were secured alive and brought to the 
colony as slaves. With this example before him,Guarionex, 
the overlord of Guatiguana and of all the other caciques 
in the Vega Real, was willing enough to follow the advice 
of Guacanagari and enter into an alliance with the Span- 
iards, which was cemented, to travesty the language of 
diplomacy, by the marriage of his daughter to Diego, the 
Admiral's trusted interpreter. There is no evidence that 
the colony gained an effective ally by this arrangement, but 
it was something that another chief whose territories bor- 
dered so closely upon Isabella was willing to refrain from 

^ If we compare the accepted account of Caonabo's seizure by 
Hojeda with the letter of instruction sent by Columbus to Margarita, 
we shall find some ground for believing that the story was in after 
years invented to agree with the orders known to have been given for 
Caonabo's capture. 



THE REVOLT OF THE TRIBES. 199 

joining the native confederacy. The seizure of Caonabo 
had only infuriated the other kings and caciques. Insti- 
gated by his three brothers, they were gathering their forces 
for an assault upon the colony which was intended to be 
irresistible. The Admiral attempted to frustrate this by send- 
ing out occasional raiding-parties into the nearer disaffected 
districts, and caused to be built another fortress, which he 
named Conception, in the heart of the Vega Real, between 
Isabella and Fort St. Thomas. But although the Indians 
were uniformly beaten in every skirmish and the Spaniards 
drove them by hundreds into the town to be held as slaves, 
the movement was too far-reaching and deeply rooted to be 
checked by any partial measures. 

During all this time the Admiral was bed-ridden. Rely- 
ing chiefly upon his brother Bartholomew and the ubiqui- 
tous Hojeda, he had directed the various movements and 
measures which seemed best calculated to check the threat- 
ened invasion, hoping to avert it until his health should 
be sufificiently recovered to enable him to take the field in 
person and conduct an offensive campaign. 

Affairs were in this critical posture when, some time 
early in November, the anxious colonists saw with a joy 
whose extravagance was pardonable four caravels sailing 
into their harbor, coming direct from Spain. It was not 
long before all on shore knew that they were commanded 
by the same Antonio de Torres who had taken back the 
fleet of twelve ships in February, and were laden with the 
supplies of all kinds which were so sorely needed. To the 
Admiral the man, with the messages he brought, was as 
welcome as the provisions and stores, for he trusted Torres 
and saw in his speedy return to Hispaniola the establish- 
ment of a regular communication with the mother-country 
without which the settlement was likely to be hard pushed 
for existence. The report made by his officer was deeply 
gratifying to Columbus. Torres related his arrival at Cadiz 
a few days before Don Bartholomew's departure for Isa- 
bella in April, and the reasons which delayed his own 
immediate access to the King and Queen. As soon as he 
had been able to have an audience with their Majesties, 



200 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

he had presented the Admiral's packet of letters and 
memorials, and the sovereigns had promptly instructed 
Fonseca to fit out eight caravels with abundant supplies of 
all kinds for the colony at Isabella. Later on, owing to 
the chronic scarcity of funds with the Spanish Crown, this 
squadron was divided into two : four caravels were to be 
prepared hastily and brought out by Torres, while the other 
four were to come out later. Their Majesties had been 
greatly pleased with all that Torres had to report and with 
the contents of the Admiral's despatches, and had given 
repeated orders to have everything arranged as the latter 
desired. Shortly before sailing with his four vessels, 
Torres had a final interview with the King and Queen, at 
which they had delivered to him sundry letters for the 
Admiral, and also the famous Memorial given by the latter 
to him on January 30th. On this document their Majesties 
had caused to be written, at the side of every paragraph, 
their replies to the representations and recommendations 
made by Columbus, and they now returned the annotated 
original to him as their reply to his report. We can ima- 
gine the interest with which the invalid Admiral broke the 
seals and ran his eye over the commentary which embraced 
the verdict of his royal master and mistress upon his course 
of action, under the unexpected conditions he had found 
confronting him on reaching Navidad. His enemies, 
headed by Fray Boil and Margarite, were already at Court 
or would soon be there, and it was all important to Colum- 
bus to know in what mood, concerning himself, they were 
likely to find Ferdinand and Isabella. The running com- 
ments dictated by their Majesties and inscribed on the 
returned Memorial left no doubt on this score, and freed 
the Admiral of at least all present anxiety as to the attitude 
of the King and Queen towards himself. It has pleased 
that class of critics, who have undertaken to free the world 
from the superstitious admiration under which it has so 
long and lamentably labored in respect of Columbus, to 
represent the Spanish sovereigns as entering " in the mar- 
gins their comments and orders" . . . "just as it was 
perused by them." We are informed that, as the Admiral 



THE REVOLT OF THE TRIBES. 2OI 

''makes excuses and gives his reasons for not doing this or 
that, the compliant monarchs as constantly write against 
the paragraphs, 'He has done well,' " etc. It must have 
been cause of added satisfaction to Columbus to notice 
(as his censors might have done, had they cared to be 
exact) that this is precisely what his royal patrons did not 
do. They did not pass their formal judgment upon his acts 
and proposals until the 15th of August, as the document itself 
shows, — four months after Torres had delivered it to them. 
At that time the comments were written out in his presence, 
to be enlarged upon and supplemented by the verbal mes- 
sages which, as the paper shows, he was charged to give the 
Admiral. It is true that their Majesties did uniformly 
approve and applaud the report and its suggestions; but 
they did it after ripe reflection and with entire familiarity 
with all the facts; not impulsively and out of mere com- 
plaisance, as the detractors of Columbus would have us 
think. Even in the matter of the proposed enslaving of 
the Caribs, their Majesties heartily approved, in so far as 
the measure was ostensibly based upon a solicitude for the 
salvation of their souls. It was only in regard to the pro- 
position to pay in cannibal slaves the costs of the future 
supplies needed for the colony that Ferdinand and Isabella 
informed Columbus that they preferred to wait until they 
should hear further from him on the subject; and in doing 
this they appear to have considered only the commercial 
expediency of the plan, not its moral obliquity. In short, 
as the Admiral read the royal comments upon his own 
memorial, and heard Torres add this, that, and the other 
verbal message from King or Queen, he had just reason 
for feeling that all he had done and projected was emphat- 
ically endorsed by them and would receive their cordial 
support. It was a vast relief to his anxious mind, and the 
fact that this approbation was not the fruit of an outburst 
of enthusiasm, born of a natural pleasure at seeing the great 
fleet safely returned and hearing of the successful founding 
of the colony, but was sober second thought on the eve of 
Torres's setting out on his return to Isabella after four 
months of conference and consultation, added immensely 



202 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

to the importance of the royal concurrence in the estima- 
tion of its recipient, — as it should in our own. In face 
of the record it is not worth while to try to minimize 
the acquiescence and applause of Ferdinand and Isabella. 
What Columbus had done and wished to do they liked and 
extolled, and they did not hesitate to say so unreservedly. 
The formal letter which they sent by Torres, dated on the 
i6th of August, — just before his departure, — was still more 
pronounced in its sympathy and encouragement. 

"We have read the letters and memorials which you sent us 
by Torres," their Majesties wrote, " and have had great pleasure 
in knowing all that which you tell us therein. We return many 
thanks to our Lord for all this, because we hope that with his 
help this affair of yours may be the means by which our holy 
Catholic faith shall be much more widely extended. One of the 
chief reasons why this business has so greatly pleased us is that 
it has been planned, begun, and carried out by your skill, effort, 
and perseverance ; for it appears to us that all which you assured 
us at the outset could be accomplished has, for the most part, 
proved exact, as though you had seen it all before you spoke to 
us about it." 

What more could any servant of any monarch desire 
than such words as these from the Crown he served ? 

" We have faith in God," continues the letter, " that what yet 
remains to be learned will correspond with that which is past, 
for which latter we hold ourselves under much obligation to 
recompense you in such manner that you shall rest satisfied." 

What more specific acknowledgment of duty well per- 
formed could a servitor of the state receive? The King 
and Queen add that, "although you have written us suf- 
ficiently in detail about all matters of interest, so that it 
is a great joy and delight to read your letters, we should 
wish that you write us something more." They catalogue 
the subjects upon which they desire more explicit informa- 
tion, — the number of all the islands found and their Indian 
names; the distance from one to the other, and the produc- 
tions of each; the results of the sowing and planting of 
European seeds and cuttings; the climate of each month as 
compared with that of Spain, whether as " some would have 



THE REVOLT OF THE TRIBES. 203 

US believe, there are out yonder in each year two winters 
and two summers." Ferdinand would like all the falcons 
which can be secured in the new lands/ and specimens of 
all other birds. Torres will report concerning the filling of 
the Admiral's requisitions. Now that no further cause of dis- 
pute exists with Portugal, and the Spanish vessels can cross 
the ocean without fear of interception, at least one caravel 
per month should be despatched from Hispaniola, so as to 
maintain constant communication between Spain and the 
colony, provided this meets with the Admiral's approval. 

"In what relates to the methods which you should adopt with 
the people you have out yonder, what you have so far done 
seems well to us, and so you should continue, giving them as 
much satisfaction as circumstances will allow. But do not allow 
them to fail in any of the things tliey ought to do and which you 
should order them to do in our name. In regard to the settle- 
ment you have founded, there is no one who can prudently give 
directions or improve anything from this distance. If we were 
there, we should follow yovu advice and opinion in this matter ; 
how much the more when we are away! Therefore we leave the 
affair in your hands." 

Their Majesties then refer to a copy which they enclose 
of the treaty signed between Spain and Portugal in the pre- 
ceding June for the amicable adjustment of all disputes 
concerning the rights of each in the unknown ocean, and 
express the desire to have the Admiral or his brother Don 
Bartholomew present at the approaching deliberations of 
the joint commission which was to determine the limits of 
each nation's rights. In any event the Admiral was to send 
them a full discussion of the whole subject from his point 
of view, together with his own suggestions as to the proper 
line of demarcation and such maps as he should consider 
useful. 

Unmistakably cordial as was the whole tenor of this 
letter, Ferdinand and Isabella were not contented to limit 
their expressions of support to the letters written to the 
Admiral in person. Torres was also entrusted with a royal 

^ The King was evidently tliinking of the frequent mention made 
by Marco Polo of the superior quality of falcons found in Asia. 



204 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

rescript or proclamation addressed to the " Knights, squires, 
officials, gentlemen, and all others of whatever degree or 
condition you may be, who, by our orders have gone, are 
going, or hereafter may go" to the Indies, enjoining them 
under heavy penalties to "do and fulfil everything which 
our Viceroy and Governor shall order or deem necessary for 
our service." The effect of this document was naturally to 
strengthen the Admiral's hands, even among those who were 
inclined to sympathize rather with Bernal de Pisa, Boil, and 
Margarite than with him. Those who were loyal gathered 
new courage from this palpable evidence of their sovereigns' 
satisfaction and support, while the new men who had come 
out with Torres saw in it a sufficient answer to the criti- 
cisms which they were sure to hear of the Admiral's rela- 
tions to the King and Queen. Whatever might be the 
danger threatening from without, Columbus felt that he 
might count upon at least a season of peace within the 
colony. 

As the voyage to Cuba and Jamaica marked a distinct 
epoch in the Admiral's career of discovery, so did the 
arrival of this budget of royal approvals and commenda- 
tions mark a corresponding phase in the history of his con- 
nection with P'erdinand and Isabella. He had to report to 
them a vast extension of their new domains, with the cer- 
tainty of still wider dominion, and had received from them 
their last expression of frank, spontaneous, and unqualified 
confidence and countenance. The long, bitter struggle with 
his enemies for the royal favor, which ended only on his 
deathbed, had begun. 




XI. 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEAT. 



AS we follow the Admiral along the southern shores of 
Cuba, Jamaica, and Hayti, on the cruise which was 
just finished, we find the engaging scenes of his first 
experiences among the Bahamas repeated at almost every 
beach and bay where native villages were found. Swarms 
of delighted and friendly Indians, flotillas of welcoming 
canoes, hospitable offerings of food and fruits, marked the 
progress of the Spanish ships as they slowly sailed from 
one headland to another. Although to most, if not all, on 
board the caravels the novelty of such a reception had 
long worn off and its constant repetition savored of tame- 
ness, the Spaniards met the natives in the same spirit of 
cordiality and left them far more enriched, in their own 
conception, than they were before the white men's treasures 
of beads and bells had been distributed. In all this time 
we find no trace of impatience, contempt, or harshness in 
the Admiral's treatment of the islanders. What they 
offered was received with appreciation and paid for, in 
the donors' estimation, with overwhelming generosity. 
No injustice was done them, no advantage taken of their 
ignorance and weakness. His references to them are 
kindly and indulgent, and his two correspondents, — the 
Cura de los Palacios and Peter Martyr, — who have trans- 
mitted to us his familiar opinions concerning those islands 
and their peoples, uniformly preserve the same tone of 
sympathetic friendliness. There was, therefore, no dif- 
ference between the benevolent sentiments he cherished 

205 



2o6 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

toward the Indians at the time of the Discovery and those 
which he exhibited during this second voyage, — as there was 
none in the voyages which succeeded. Where the natives 
were peaceably disposed and met him in a spirit of frank- 
ness and confidence, he was quick to respond in a similar 
strain. There is absolutely nothing in the record to justify 
an honest doubt, that in pursuing this humane course, his 
ideas of policy coincided with his personal inclinations. 

But where he was received with menaces and brandished 
weapons, he opposed arms to arms; where the cannibals 
threatened the permanency of his projected settlements and 
the anatomical integrity of his settlers, he treated them as 
natural foes; where his men were slaughtered and his 
colony endangered, he looked upon his savage adversaries 
as Miles Standish did upon the pagan disturbers of the 
Puritan peace. What were the merits of the several issues 
is not the question. Doubtless there were as flagrant cases 
of injustice in the Indian affairs of Hispaniola in 1494 as 
there were in those of the United States centuries after- 
ward. We cannot deny the academical correctness of the 
plea that the aborigines were entitled to resist the invasion 
of their sierras and savannahs, and repel, if they could, 
the Europeans vi et armis. Las Casas urged that point as 
eloquently and logically in the time of Columbus as Mrs. 
Jackson, or Mr. Welsh, or any of the devoted friends of the 
redman, have done and are doing in our own day, — and 
with just about the same measure of success. Columbus 
did not go as far in his classification of Indians good and 
bad as have some of our own bravest soldiers, for he was 
contented to believe that an Indian was safely disposed of 
when he was made a slave; but there was no shadow of 
turning in his emphatic conviction that a bow was to be 
met with an arquebuse and an assegai with a lance. Fight- 
ing was not even an accomplishment in those days to a man 
of active life : it was a necessity of his existence. Battle, 
murder, and sudden death were good things to be delivered 
from, no doubt, but the chance of escaping them was small 
for most adult litanists of the stronger sex. To their credit 
be it said, that they fought cheerfully and manfully on all 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEAT. 



207 



occasions, whether evenly matched, outnumbered, or out- 
numbering; they did not wait to make their reputation by 
some easy conquest of a weakling foe. But the feeble- 
ness of their adversary did not deter them; if he chose to 
withstand them, on his head be the pains. If the scene 
was laid in Europe and he was Italian, French, or Flem- 
ing who opposed the Spanish arms, he was good for a 
ransom if taken alive; while, if killed, he was an enemy 
the less. If, on other fields, he was Moor of Granada or 
Barbary, Guanch^ of the Canaries, or black savage of the 
Guinea coast, he was his captor's property, or that of the 
Crown, and worth what he might bring in the nearest mart. 
Therefore, after doing a reasonable amount of killing, the 
Spanish soldier was wont to withhold his hand and devote 
himself to the acquisition of locomotive plunder. Noth- 
ing can be said in defence of such a code; it was as bad 
as bad can be. We accomplish the same laudable ends 
now by far less ostentatious means. But in the times of 
which we write, as every schoolboy knows, such was the 
code of every nation in Europe; and to brand Columbus, 
as some do, as "the originator of American slavery" be- 
cause he did not introduce a different style of warfare into 
the New World, is only a captious method of saying that 
the natives of Hispaniola, with whom he and his compan- 
ions fought, were natives of the recently discovered western 
islands and not of Europe, Asia, or Africa. To this purely 
military aspect of the subject must be added the religious. 
Columbus was a devoted — it is easy for us Protestants to 
say a bigoted — son of the Church. Its law was his duty; its 
honor, his pride. Those who raised their weapons against 
the holy symbol of his faith — and he sailed, marched, 
and fought beneath the Green Cross — or against those who 
brought salvation to the Gentiles, were Anathema, — the 
lawful spoil of Christians, who conferred an everlasting 
boon upon them by saving their souls at the trifling expense 
of their bodies' pain. Nothing is easier than to scoff at 
this feeling now, dub it hypocrisy, taunt Columbus with 
finding it a convenient cloak for his alleged schemes of 
avarice. But it is a fact, little as we may share the senti- 



208 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ment, and as such cannot be laughed out of court. We 
are not living in the fifteenth century, it is well to remem- 
ber, nor are we Columbuses. 

This radical distinction, between those natives who re- 
ceived the Spaniards amicably and accepted their tutelage, 
and those who resented their coming and sought to compel 
their withdrawal, is the key to the apparent inconsistency 
of the Admiral's treatment of the Indians. Both in the 
past and in the future he treated those who met him peace- 
ably with justice and consideration; but those who opposed 
him he met sword in hand, as he had faced Moors, Vene- 
tians, French, and Portuguese in the stormy years of his 
youth. Even on his first voyage, he had frankly recom- 
mended such a policy as the only one compatible with 
safety and success. The power of Spain and the honor of 
the Church must be upheld at all costs. This is why he 
did not reprove his men for the blood they shed in Samana 
Bay, when on their way to Spain from the Discovery; why 
he looked upon the punishment of the Caribs as obligatory; 
why he considered it imperative to capture Caonabo, the 
destroyer of the garrison at Navidad; why he met the 
menaces of the Jamaicans and Higueyans with counter 
demonstrations; and why, since his return to Isabella, he 
had sent Hojeda and his other captains on devastating raids 
through the surrounding country. What was wise policy in 
a time of peace was criminal weakness in a season of war. 
Those who were his friends among the natives, he rewarded; 
those who were his enemies, he sought to punish. The 
ethical objections are obvious but not relevant. The prac- 
tical flaw in his system, viewing it from the moral level of 
his day, was that he could not impose upon his deputies and 
subordinates a like discrimination to that which he himself 
exercised. In the absence of such a distinction, all the 
natives came to be looked upon as legitimate prey by the 
Spaniards. 

The fact that, with the exception of Guarionex and Gua- 
canagari, all the caciques of the island were banded together 
to destroy the Europeans was, in the Admiral's estimation, 
ample justification for proceeding against them with all the 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEAT. 



209 



rigors of an offensive war. Self-preservation was added to 
the otl>er motives which influenced his conduct towards the 
Haytians, and what he had in contemplation he proposed to 
do thoroughly. His malady did not yet permit him to take 
an active part in the preparations, but he directed them with 
his wonted care, and felt no doubt as to the results of the 
campaign he was planning, notwithstanding the overwhelm- 
ing superiority of the natives in number. Only two years 
had passed since he and all his companions were thrown, 
wellnigh defenceless, upon the shores near Navidad and 
succored with such rare hospitality and magnanimity by 
some of these very islanders. If, in that short time, the 
white men had so far antagonized the natives that the 
former were now threatened with actual extermination, 
the causes of the evil lay in something deeper than any fan- 
cied callousness of the Admiral toward the people whose 
amiable guilelessness he had so often vaunted. The root 
of the trouble was, undoubtedly, the excesses and cruelties 
committed by the worthless rabble which constituted so 
large a proportion of colonists, and the disorganization 
which made possible the continuance of such dangerous 
license. As Viceroy and the commander-in-chief of the 
soldiery, Columbus was, of course, responsible for this con- 
dition of affairs, and it would be useless to attempt to 
relieve him of the consequences. At the same time, it is 
only just to bear in mind that on leaving the colony and 
starting upon his Cuban cruise, at what the event proved to 
be a hazardous season, he was fulfilling the repeated injunc- 
tions of his sovereigns to settle the problem of Cuba's geog- 
raphy at the earliest practicable moment. He was detained 
on that voyage by untoward circumstances, and, upon his 
return, was incapacitated from active exertions for five 
months by an illness which repeatedjy menaced his life. 
Opposed to him, in secret and overtly, was a strong faction 
of Crown-appointed officials who possessed, and were known 
to possess, the confidence and — as in the case of Margarite, 
Boil, and Bernal de Pisa — the friendship of the King and 
Queen. If we duly weigh these circumstances, we shall 
find that the responsibility of Columbus was not properly of 

14 



210 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

his own making, and that in pursuing a policy of repression 
and punishment lie was acting in the one manner consistent 
with the interests of his charge in the conditions which he 
found existing. The problem immediately confronting him 
was not how to establish and maintain a just and righteous 
code of procedure towards the natives, but how to preserve 
his colony from destruction and uphold the authority of the 
Spanish Crown in the New World. In deciding it he 
adopted the only argument which his experience or that of 
his contemporaries had found efficacious, — a vigorously 
conducted military campaign. The history of the relations 
of white men and Indians in the western hemisphere does 
not suggest that there was any alternative. The Spaniards 
were surrounded on all sides by a numerous, united, and 
not despicable foe. To attempt to treat with such a horde 
of savages was as futile then as it would be now. No course 
was open except to reduce them to submission before trust- 
ing to any parleys. Columbus followed the same reasoning 
that we have ourselves consistently pursued in our alleged 
Indian policy, and committed the same error afterwards as 
we have, — of not enforcing a just and humane treatment 
of the conquered tribes. That is the true extent of his 
fault. To charge him with indiscriminate cruelty is to 
falsify history. 

Before the Admiral was ready to take the field, he de- 
spatched Antonio de Torres back to Spain with the four 
ships in which he had come out. As on his former voyage, 
this officer took with him a budget of letters, reports,^ and 
memorials from Columbus to his sovereigns, but the Ad- 
miral did not trust to these alone. The defection of Boil 
and Margarite, the result of his Cuban cruise, and the 
present dangerous crisis in the colony's affairs demanded 

1 Herrera summarizes (Lib. I. Cap. III. of the ist Decade) a long 
and minute description of the island of Hayti forwarded by Columbus 
to Ferdinand and Isabella at the time. It is full of interesting detail, 
and has been reproduced by Irving and other historians; but its author- 
ship has escaped their notice. In the same budget was the Admiral's 
pa>-escer, or opinion, concerning the relative geographical rights of 
Spain and Portugal under the Papal Bull. 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEAT. 211 

that their Majesties should have a full knowledge of all that 
had happened from a source certain to do justice to Colum- 
bus. The latter accordingly deputed his brother, Don 
Diego, to accompany Torres and represent the Admiral's 
interests before the King and Queen. By his hands were sent 
such commodities, curiosities, and valuables as had been 
collected since the departure of the last squadron in August. 
Of gold there was little to be sent, for the disturbed condi- 
tion of the country had put an end to all systematic mining 
and washing. But the fleet was laden with a cargo which 
would excite almost as much interest and satisfaction in 
Cadiz and Seville as though it brought a goodly heap of yel- 
low ingots for the mint. Five hundred of the Indians cap- 
tured in the expedition against Guatiguana, and the other 
raids into the interior, were crowded on the caravels, con- 
signed to the godly Bishop of Badajoz, Juan de Fonseca, as a 
welcome remittance from the colony at Isabella. It is shock- 
ing enough to read of, and our own laws were right in mak- 
ing it a capital offence; but it was the custom of the day in 
1494. Moors, Canary Islanders, and negroes were imported 
in droves and sold freely in the Spanish markets, and the 
addition of a new brand of human goods to the current 
supply was received with no other objection than that it 
tended to depress prices. There is a pretty story to the 
effect that Queen Isabella resented this appropriation of 
her new " vassals " and angrily exclaimed against the Ad- 
miral's presumption in so dealing with them. But a care- 
ful study of the records discloses that her anger was directed 
against the man himself and not his act; for the King and 
Queen freely condoned, if they did not frankly permit, the 
enslavement of the natives for several years after this first 
shipment. They feigned to discriminate between captives 
taken in arms and peaceable Indians wrongfully kidnapped, 
but they did not scruple to cover all the proceeds into the 
royal coffers. Judged from our point of view, — as improved 
within the last twenty-five years, — the whole business was 
atrocious. But we might as logically inveigh against the 
Spaniards of the fifteenth century for not maintaining a 
system of public schools as for trading in slaves. We need 



212 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

not go back very far to find ourselves in their place, if we 
desire to look at the matter from both sides. 

By the beginning of March the Admiral was well enough 
to put his plans into execution. He had collected a force 
of 200 infantry and twenty horsemen. Many of the num- 
ber were more fitted for the convalescent hospital than for 
campaigning, but all who were strong enough to bear arms 
were pressed into the service. In addition to this force 
there were twenty bloodhounds, now for the first time in- 
troduced on the scene in western lands. These savage 
animals had been brought by Torres from the Canary 
Islands, where the breed had long been used in hunting 
down the natives. These particular ones were destined 
for service against the cannibals, when the Admiral should 
undertake his expedition among their islands; but they 
were too valuable an ally to be discarded by the feeble 
army. Guacanagari, with some of his tribesmen, also ac- 
companied the Spanish column, and may have been of 
some assistance in the commissariat; neither he nor his 
people were fighters. The town was left in care of the 
invalids and artisans, who were considered a sufficient 
guard when aided by the artillery and defences of the fort. 
The Admiral, in fact, had not to cut loose from this base, 
for the enemy was gathered in force in the nearest part of 
the Vega Real, only two short marches from Isabella. At 
the most, the Spaniards had only to advance thirty miles 
from the town to reach the native host. Committing the 
blunder which has been perpetrated with such pathetic 
monotony by so many savage armies, the Indians had aban- 
doned all the advantages of a position in the neighboring 
hills and had come down into the level savannah to meet 
their assured fate. How many there may have been is not 
even to be guessed. Las Casas says that some of the 
Spaniards alleged that there were more than 100,000. It 
is not improbable that there were one-fifth of the number, 
for the insurrection was general and the population of the 
island considerable.^ They were, as to the majority, quite 

1 According to Las Casas, Columbus estimated the population at 
1.100,000. The good Bishop thinks this referred to the province of 
Cihao alone. 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEA T. 2 1 3 

naked; some of the tribes wore a kind of waistcloth. 
Their weapons were generally bows, light arrows of reeds 
tipped with bones of fish, or bits of turtle shell, spears of 
hard wood, with their ends hardened in the fire and sharp- 
ened, and fiat two-edged wooden swords. Some of the 
mountaineers even retained the primitive arms of the stone 
age, — hatchets, maces, and flint-headed javelins. The 
Spaniards were well armed, if weak; they had both fire- 
arms and cross-bows, were in most cases protected by steel 
corselets and helmets, carried long, keen swords, and their 
mounted men had the heavy lances used to overthrow the 
mail-clad soldiery of Europe. The natives were com- 
manded by one of Caonabo's brothers, who displayed a 
rude generalship in dividing his host into several columns, 
with the intent of encircling the petty force opposed to 
him. But the Spaniards did not await an assault. Mov- 
ing against the nearest column, the infantry discharged 
their arquebuses and bows, while the little band of horse- 
men, led by Hojeda, plunged headlong into the naked 
crowd before it. The "battle " was over in a moment, and 
instead was to be seen nothing but swarms of fleeing 
Indians pursued by horse and foot and smitten down as 
fast as swords could fall and lances thrust. The leashes 
which held the bloodhounds were slipped, and the hungry 
animals sprang at limb or throat, leaping from one bare 
victim to another and inspiring almost as much terror 
among the distracted fugitives as did the awesome animals 
of larger size which were thundering at their heels. In a 
dozen directions across the plain the luckless Haytians 
streamed, seeking the shelter of neighboring woods and 
foot-hills, and after them followed infantry, cavalry, and 
dogs, killing and mangling to their savage content. After 
all, a couple of hundred men can only slaughter a limited 
number of their kind in a given number of hours, even when 
their quarry is defenceless. It takes an appreciable time to 
hew down or thrust through even a naked body and recover 
one's weapon for da capo ; and there is, besides, the time 
consumed in chasing. In later years the Spanish conquista- 
dores scientifically reduced the needful motions to a 



214 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

minimum, thereby largely increasing the mortality among 
their adversaries and correspondingly diminishing their 
own fatigue; but in the affair of the Vega Real they were 
yet unskilled and would consequently weary the sooner. 
What the death-roll among the natives was has not been 
given; it is not likely that any one made a count. It could 
not have much exceeded a thousand. No one among the 
Spaniards seems to have been seriously hurt.' As soon as 
the heat of the pursuit was over and the dispersion of the 
main bodies complete, the victors turned their attention to 
corralling the largest available number of their opponents 
for slaves, and the whole dreary business was finished. 

It has not been often necessary to repeat an object-lesson 
of this kind among nations having as little inclination for 
war as the people of Hispaniola. The defeated confeder- 
ates slunk to their several retreats and counted themselves 
fortunate if they were not quickly haled therefrom by some 
raiding-party from the Spanish forces. The authority of 
the native caciques was gone, the confidence of the tribes 
forever broken, the population scattered, their plantations 
and settlements deserted, and the whole economy of the 
central portion of the island fatally disorganized. The 
murders of two or three score Spaniards had been abun- 
dantly revenged, and the peace of hopeless subjection 
established throughout the land. It was the fortune of war, 
as war was considered then, — the natural and inevitable 
penalty attaching to defeat. The Spaniards would have 
expected a similar fate had they lost the day, and would 
have met with it. 

The Admiral now divided his forces into numerous par- 
ties and sent them into the disaffected districts to complete 
the work of pacification, so called. Sending Don Barthol- 
omew back to Isabella as governor, in his absence, he 
himself marched through the Vega Real, thence into 
Cibao, thence to Maguana, — the country of Caonabo, — 
and so, by a wide detour to the south and east, back to 
Isabella. This progress consumed many months; Las 
Casas says it lasted until the end of the year 1495. Con- 
cerning its incidents not a great deal remains. Those vil- 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEAT. 



215 



lages and districts which submitted to the Spanish authority 
were undisturbed; those which offered any opposition were 
harried with fire and sword. As is always the case, the 
subordinate officers were more royal than the King, and 
meted out punishment with scant regard either for justice 
or mercy. It is on record that the Admiral himself en- 
deavored to temper what he believed to be the military ex- 
igencies of the situation with the exercise of a more humane 
policy. In some instances he met with organized resist- 
ance, notably from two brothers of Caonabo, who endeavored 
to avenge the rout of the Vega. The result was, of course, 
always the same, and the effort only increased the straits into 
which the natives had fallen. Many districts were aban- 
doned at the approach of the Spaniards; into others they 
could not penetrate. In some, a certain amount of gold 
was collected; in others, large quantities of cotton, a little 
amber, the highly prized brazil-wood, and so on. The expe- 
dition, so far as the Admiral was concerned, was not entirely 
for retaliation and discipline; he wished to exhibit to the 
native population the power of the Spaniards, but he was 
equally desirous to complete his knowledge of the island 
and its productions. At the end of his long journey he 
was able to report to the King and Queen that the country 
was pacified, all resistance at an end, and the people dis- 
posed to accept the Spanish rule without opposition. 

In token of their subjection he proposed to establish the 
payment of a tribute. This was adjusted to meet the 
supposed abilities of the several tribes. Each Indian, 
whether man or woman, between the ages of fourteen and 
forty, who lived in the vicinity of the mines or gold-bear- 
ing rivers of Cibao, the Vega Real, and Maguana, was to 
furnish every three months as much gold as a hawk's-bell 
would contain. The natives of the other reduced districts 
were to deliver within the same period, in lieu of gold, 
twenty-five pounds of raw cotton. As each Indian paid 
his quarterly tax, a metal token was to be given him as 
evidence of quittance for that instalment. If he could 
not produce such evidence, he was subject to "moderate" 
chastisement. Unfortunately, the text of the decree im- 



2l6 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

posing this tax has not been preserved. We know little of 
it save its consequences, which were miserable in the 
last degree. Had we its terms to guide us, some light 
would be thrown upon a measure the unwisdom of which 
seems so patent that it is difficult to comprehend how 
any one should have adopted it. The object was, obvi- 
ously enough, to replenish the royal coffers and make the 
large and absolutely idle native population contribute 
something in return for the benefits, spiritual and tem- 
poral, which the Spanish occupation was supposed to 
confer; for in the Admiral's day, as in ours, the untutored 
savage was assumed to be pining for a "civilization" 
whose first fruits were his own extermination. It was 
not singular that, with the evidences of gold so abun- 
dant on all sides and with the recollection of the free- 
dom with which the natives bartered away considerable 
quantities of it, the Admiral should require them to collect 
in three months the amount they had cheerfully offered in 
exchange for the little bells which were now made the meas- 
ure of value. What is strange is that he should have sup- 
posed whole tribes could support such a tax upon their 
strength for any length of time. They had no idea of con- 
tinuous labor and knew nothing about gathering gold, for 
the most part. It was a common sight, after the impost 
was established, to see an Indian heaping up a pile of earth 
or gravel by the side of a brook, throwing water over it with 
his hands, and then searching painfully for the yellow grains 
to add to his little hoard. Both for "mining " and cotton- 
planting the only implement the native possessed was a 
pointed stick. Under such conditions, to expect every man 
and boy in a wide district to secure the stated quantity of 
gold or cotton was to ignore the intrinsic limitation of the 
case. It can only be explained by the theory that the 
Indians had literally nothing to do, and they themselves 
were the authority, ever since the first landing in Hispaniola 
in '92, that gold existed in vast quantities and could be 
"gathered in the hands." Before the first quarter-day 
arrived it was clear that there would be a general default 
in the payment of the tribute. Guarionex stated the case 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEAT. 21/ 

fairly when he appealed to the Admiral for a mitigation of 
the tax. His people in the Vega Real, he said, knew noth- 
ing about gold or its gathering; it was absolutely impossible 
for them to make up the required amount. Let the Admiral 
permit them to pay the tax in corn, instead of gold, and he 
would gladly undertake to plant a belt of grain for the King 
of Spain which should extend right through the island, from 
Isabella to the south coast. At first the Admiral declined 
to listen to the representations made by Guarionex; he saw 
no reason why able-bodied men, as the natives certainly 
were, could not get together in three months the small 
quantity of gold which he had demanded. After much 
argument and entreaty, he yielded to the accumulating evi- 
dence in support of the cacique's position and reduced the 
tribute by one-half; thereafter, only the contents of half a 
hawk's-bell were required. This measure implied, of course, 
a vast relief to the Indians; but even at the diminished rate 
they did not meet the demands of the tribute. In some of 
the richer districts the tax was paid, as in certain of the 
more fertile ones the requisite amount of cotton was forth- 
coming; but in general only a feeble response was made. 
Whether, if the impost had been reduce to a tenth, or even 
less, the indolent and labor-hating Indians would have done 
any better is very doubtful. They did not know how to 
work, and either could not or would not learn. The whole 
theory of the tribute was as impolitic as it was unjust, and 
it had no chance of success. As the failure in the payments 
became first general and then permanent, the Admiral ap- 
pointed officials to visit the several districts and endeavor 
to secure their collection. This was, in substance, handing 
over the natives to be dealt with as the character of the 
collector might dictate. The Admiral's instructions were 
explicit and emphatic that justice and kindness were to be 
shown in all transactions with the delinquents, as the object 
was to secure the largest revenues for the Crown, not to 
chastise the peaceable Indians. The recent behavior of 
Margarite and his men when sent among the friendly tribes, 
and the remembrance of the tyrannical performances of the 
garrison of Navidad, should have been enough to cause him 



2l8 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

to hesitate before placing the lives of the defenceless Hay- 
tians in the hands of his rude and ignorant followers. No 
doubt he assumed that he could control his agents; but this 
was the one thing which he did less successfully than 
another. The inevitable result was that in many cases the 
collectors of the tribute became persecutors, and much 
cruelty and extortion were inflicted on the unfortunate tax- 
payers. The natives learned to dread the sight of a Span- 
iard in many districts and to flee to the mountains and 
woods at their approach. This exposed them to the con- 
venient charge of resistance, and that meant violence, cap- 
tivity, or death, according to the disposition of the collector. 
With only the choice between a life of what to them was 
intolerable effort, and the loss of life or liberty, the Indians 
gradually abandoned all hope of satisfying their new lords 
and forsook en masse their homes and plantations, prefer- 
ring a precarious but free life among the sierras to the hard- 
ships of the white men's rule. At first, the more ignorant 
among them hoped that such a course would cause the 
Spaniards to despair of ever getting enough of the coveted 
gold to make it worth their while continuing the effort, 
and that sooner or later they would take to their ships and 
sail away as suddenly as they had come. But work con- 
tinued at Isabella, two new forts were commenced in the 
Vega, the Admiral pursued his journey through the central 
provinces, and his officers with their parties persistently 
invaded district after district in their inquisition after the 
tribute; so that in time the natives learned that their_ sacri- 
fices availed nothing and that the strangers were a fixture in 
the land. The very general cessation of planting and sow- 
ing did inflict upon the Spaniards no small distress and 
embarrassment, and when the revenue chasers entered the 
mountain country they had often to make shift with roots 
and wild fruits, as did the disheartened people whom they 
were tracking down; but, in the long run, the real suffer- 
ing fell upon the Indians themselves. It was no mere 
boast, that in which one of the Spaniards indulged, when 
he said of his countrymen, "the hungrier they are the 
more tenacious they are, and the more disposed to suffer 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEAT. 219 

and to make suffer." It was the creed of the conquistador 
epitomized. 

To Columbus the situation was one of profound discour- 
agement, little less in degree than that which confronted 
him upon his return from Cuba. He had put down the 
insurrection among the natives at the price of widespread 
devastation and a distrust beyond all remedy. Foiled in 
his plans for a systematic and legitimate working of the gold- 
bearing rocks and gravels, he had endeavored to ensure its 
equivalent to the royal treasury by the imposition of a trib- 
ute which the universal customs of war recognized as fit and 
commendable. This effort likewise promised to be futile 
and to involve him in a policy of severity and persecution 
little in consonance with the relations he had expected 
to maintain with the natives. The failure of both these 
plans for raising revenue accentuated the peril in which, as 
he fully realized, his credit with Ferdinand and Isabella 
was involved. The outlays in connection with the colony 
had been enormous, the returns pitifully small. So far from 
being even self-supporting, the intrigues and demoralization 
at Isabella had prevented any methodical execution of his 
really far-seeing projects, while disease had more than 
decimated his followers and left the survivors all but inca- 
pacitated for any useful work. All this, he knew, was at 
this very time being iterated and reiterated to the King and 
Queen by men who had their confidence, and who hated him 
with all the malice of arrogance rebuked and pride offended, 
added to the contempt of race and caste. In the justice of 
their Majesties and the loyalty of his own good friends he 
had unshaken confidence, but the censures and insinuations 
of his enemies derive their best support from the very con- 
dition of affairs which he saw confronting him. Instead of 
the evangelization of the natives upon which so much stress 
had been laid, here were destruction and war; instead of a 
steady stream of gold, a constant requisition for new ex- 
pense; instead of a flourishing, united, and successful col- 
ony, a long record of disaster and discord. There remained 
only the "slave trade," of which we have heard so much; 
but Columbus was too familiar with arithmetic and the 



220 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

resources of Hispaniola to imagine that he was going to 
be able to obtain a hundred thousand slaves there, or, if 
he did so, dispose of any such number in Spain, or in all 
Europe, and thus amortize the costs of colonizing this one 
island. A few cargoes of captured Indians would help 
matters financially, ecclesiastically, and politically, — for 
what other disposition was to be made of such prisoners of 
war? — but they were merely an item, not a basis, of rev- 
enue. In his own heart, dark as was the present outlook, 
there was room neither for doubt nor fear as to the ultimate 
future of his whole gigantic enterprise. Reap the reward 
who might, he knew the end must be success. With the vast 
panorama of his voyages through the Caribs' Islands, along 
the Cuban shores, past the long coasts of Jamaica and His- 
paniola, clearly pictured in his mind, he, at least, realized 
what their Majesties of Spain had received in exchange for 
their ducats and maravedies. With his fund of accumulated 
knowledge and information, he held with abiding confidence 
to the faith that far greater returns were yet in store for 
them. The present confusion and partial frustration of his 
and their anticipations was not fairly chargeable to him. 
He had been brought into it in a swoon and left to fight his 
way out as best he could. Before long, the island would 
settle down, a revenue be assured by peaceful means, and 
he be at liberty to satisfy his sovereigns that this western 
world held more than islands, — vast, fertile, and wealth- 
abounding as these were. Until then, he should pursue his 
way with unabated energy and act as to him seemed best 
for the interests of the King and Queen whose deputy he 
was. However little we may agree with some of his meth- 
ods, no one can fail to respect the undaunted courage and 
inalterable faith of this sore-tried sailor-Viceroy. 

Meantime, matters were shaping themselves evilly for him 
in Spain. Boil and Margarite reached Cadiz at the end of 
November, '94, a few weeks after Torres had sailed for 
Isabella. They lost no time in presenting themselves 
before the King and Queen at Madrid and unfolding their 
budget of grievances. According to them, the whole enter- 
pnse of the Indies was a delusion and a snare, invented and 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEAT. 221 

sustained by Columbus for his own aggrandizement. There 
was no gold worth the trouble of gathering, no spices worth 
the curing, no products which would repay the cost of col- 
lection. The climate was deadly, and the inhabitants naked 
barbarians. The colony was badly situated and worse gov- 
erned. The foreign parvenu whom the sovereigns had 
placed as Viceroy over so many of their noble and spirited 
subjects had outraged the pride and dignity of gentlemen 
by compelling them to work like common hinds and accept 
a scanty dole of wretched fare. Not satisfied with humili- 
ating his superiors in the social scale, he had impiously 
obliged the clergy to live on short commons like their half- 
starved flock. When hidalgos and priests alike resented 
such coarse measures, he, or his brother in his absence, had 
cut down their rations still farther, imprisoned some of the 
critics, and punished others yet more severely. His brothers 
were more insupportable than himself, because less en- 
titled to recognition for their achievements. The Viceroy 
had sailed away, leaving his powers in the hands of Don 
Diego, who had thereupon attempted to lord it still more 
offensively over the unhappy Castilians. Where the Viceroy 
himself had gone, no one knew; it was more than doubtful 
whether he should ever be seen again. The relators had 
borne this wretched condition of affairs as long as they could, 
and had at last felt that their duty to their sovereigns de- 
manded that they return to Spain and lay the truth of the 
whole matter before their Majesties. Whatever might be 
the outcome, this at least was certain, — the Crown would 
never receive any return from these new lands commen- 
surate with the sacrifices it had cost to secure them and 
those which would be needful to retain them. The vaunted 
Indies were neither more nor less than a yawning pit for the 
royal treasure, and a certain grave for the loyal servants of 
the Crown. Supported as they were by the stories of their 
fellow-malcontents who had returned with them, and by the 
letters and depositions of those who had not been able to 
leave Isabella, the representations of these influential place- 
men had no little weight with Ferdinand and Isabella. 
An active intrigue was set on foot against Columbus, backed 



222 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

with all the ingenuity of envy and disappointed ambition; 
and for some time it seemed destined to success. If their 
Majesties were not moved to act immediately in the direc- 
tion desired by Boil and Margarite, they at least went so far 
as to seriously consider the wisdom of some such step. No 
doubt the violence of the Admiral's accusers somewhat 
detracted from the credibility of their assertions, and there 
was, moreover, a certain amount of evidence in his favor 
received by the same vessels, including a remittance of 
gold in dust and nuggets of sufficient importance to warrant 
its coinage and use in buying fresh supplies for Isabella. 
But when the new year opened, and the weeks went by with- 
out any further word from beyond the seas of Viceroy or 
colonists, the King and Queen began to fear that the worst 
had happened to both, and ordered the early departure of 
four caravels which were to bear ample provisions and 
supplies, in accordance with the Admiral's own former 
requisitions, and on which was to go a commissioner 
empowered to investigate the charges made by Boil and his 
friends and make a report upon the condition of affairs in 
general. This squadron was to sail in March and was to be 
followed by four other caravels in May or June. In pursu- 
ance again of the Admiral's suggestions, a contract was 
entered into (with Juanoto Berardi, Vespucci's employer) 
for furnishing twelve vessels in all, as they might be required, 
at a fixed rate per ton; and Fonseca was directed to hasten 
the despatch of the first four. The reason alleged by their 
Majesties for this urgency, in writing to him, was "because 
we somewhat fear that God has disposed of the Admiral of 
the Indies on the voyage which he undertook, as so long a 
time has passed since we heard anything from him." The 
real motive lay probably in the next sentence, — "We have 
therefore decided to send out Commander Diego Carrillo 
and another personage of confidence, who shall provide for 
everything out there if the Admiral be absent, and even if 
he is present shall remedy those matters which it is desira- 
ble to remedy, according to the information we have had 
from those who have arrived from there." Carrillo was to 
go out with the second squadron; the "other personage," 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEAT. 223 

who was to go on the vessels now preparing for sea, was left 
at first to Fonseca's choice, but before he had exercised it 
their Majesties wrote again and directed him to appoint 
Juan de Aguado to the position of captain of the little fleet 
and royal commissioner. This worthy, it will be remem- 
bered, had sailed with the Admiral on the voyage of colon- 
ization in '93, and returned with Torres, who was especially 
charged by Columbus in his Memorial to recommend 
Aguado to the sovereigns for having "well and diligently 
served in everything he had been ordered to do." There 
is no reason to believe that Ferdinand and Isabella chose 
the man for this post because he had become an intriguer 
against his commander; but it is not easy to see how any 
loyal subordinate could have accepted the task, now given to 
Aguado, of investigating that commander's actions. Prob- 
ably he was merely one of those invertebrate entities whose 
only chance of elevation is over their prostrate benefactors. 
At all events, he accepted the task of acting as spy against 
Columbus and rendered invaluable assistance to the cabal 
laboring for his humiliation. 

The instructions given by their Majesties concerning this 
mission, in the letter to Fonseca already quoted, well por- 
tray the confusion of mind in which they were involved by 
reason of their desire to believe in their Admiral and in Boil 
at the same time. As we have seen, if Columbus were 
absent from the colony, Aguado was to take charge of 
everything; if the Admiral were present, the commissioner 
was to "remedy" what was out of sorts. He was to hear 
the complaints which were made by each side against the 
other, inform himself minutely of the true position of 
affairs in the colony, — "how it is governed and what re- 
forms are necessary; at whose door lies the blame for what- 
ever wrong has been done or is doing there," — and then 
return to Spain and make a report of all that he had 
learned. Some sense was shown in forbidding any one of 
the malcontents from returning with Aguado to Hispaniola 
and so stirring up more mischief, and an appearance of 
impartiality, in ordering him to inquire also how these ex- 
officials had discharged their duties. But the utter folly of 



224 ^^-^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the whole commission, as an administrative measure, was 
displayed in the authority given to Aguado to ignore the 
Admiral. He was to have charge of all the provisions and 
supplies with which the caravels were laden, and was to 
"divide them in the presence of the Admiral, should he 
be there, and if not, before those who may be present." 
Finally, he was to be instructed by Fonseca, " that he must 
act in strict conformity with these directions, — but if he 
should find the Admiral [in the colony] he was to be under 
his authority in all things " ! Here was a rare opportunity 
for a meddlesome and conceited courtier to put a too suc- 
cessful newcomer in his right place. If the Admiral should 
point to one phrase as limiting Aguado's powers, the latter 
could retort by showing another clause making him entirely 
independent of the Admiral. The commission was a strik- 
ing example of the vacillation exhibited by Ferdinand and 
Isabella in their attitude toward Columbus and of their 
seemingly uncontrollable propensity to interfere, at every 
stage, in the direction of affairs falling specifically within 
his official jurisdiction. He was not gifted with great 
executive ability at best, but had he been less loyal to his 
sovereigns' commands, and more independent, he would 
probably have succeeded better. As it was, no viceroy 
could have been successful in the face of the persistent 
and disconcerting intervention of the King and Queen. 

The preparations for the despatch of Aguado were actively 
proceeding when Antonio de Torres arrived, on April loth, 
with his four slave-laden vessels. His coming caused a 
marked revolution in the sentiments of Ferdinand and 
Isabella. He brought despatches from the Admiral an- 
nouncing the safe completion of his voyage to Cuba and 
Jamaica, and of the supposed identification of the former 
with the Asiatic continent. His own testimony to the 
position of affairs at Isabella was favorable to the Admiral, 
and, besides, he was accompanied by Don Diego, who was 
prepared to champion his brother's cause with a complete 
knowledge of all the facts distorted by Boil and Margarite. 
True, the latter' s faction received an important accession in 
the person of Bernal de Pisa, but this dignitary returned in 



THE PENALTY OF DEFEAT. 



225 



disgrace, sent home by the Admiral at their Majesties' ex- 
press commandment. Moreover, Torres brought a tangible 
earnest of the colony's productiveness in the gold, copper, 
brazil and other dye-woods, cotton and other commodities 
which his ships contained. As for the slaves, they were so 
much ready money, and were accepted as such by the sov- 
ereigns. It is almost amusing, in view of the efforts which 
have been made to contrast the cruelty of Columbus with 
the enlightened humanity of Ferdinand and Isabella, to 
find the latter, in the same letter in which they acknowl- 
edge the news of Torres' s arrival, saying to Fonseca that 
" it seems to us that the Indians can be sold to better ad- 
vantage there in Andalusia than anywhere else : do you 
have them sold as to you may seem best."-^ The effect of 
this opportune arrival was distinctly favorable to Columbus. 
The very fact that he was alive and back at his post de- 
prived his adversaries of their chief argument. The equip- 
ment of Aguado's squadron was not suspended, for the 
reports brought by Torres only confirmed the urgent need 
of supplies for Isabella; but the King and Queen evidently 
leaned again more towards the Admiral's side than that of 
his detractors, and insisted upon the officers of the Crown 
respecting his authority and wishes. Fonseca wished to 
lay claim to some gold brought by Don Diego, as his per- 
sonal property, and also refused to honor the demand of 
the Admiral's agent for the one-eighth part of the gold and 
slaves brought by Torres; but their Majesties very emphat- 
ically directed him to permit Don Diego to keep his gold 
and Juanoto to draw out the full share to which Columbus 
was entitled under his agreement with the Crown. Fonseca 
was evidently bent on putting difficulties in the way of re- 
enforcing the Admiral's exchequer, for it took no less than 

1 It is true that a few days later they ordered Fonseca not to deliver 
any of these Indians to their buyers until their Majesties had an oppor- 
tunity to learn, in discharge of their delicate consciences, from the 
Admiral's letters, whether the captives were taken in war or kid- 
napped; but Fonseca was to take care that the intending purchasers 
" do not know anything of this." Columbus at least had the courage 
of his convictions, and made no secret of his actions. The Indians 
were duly sold, we may add, and some sent to man the galleys. 

15 



226 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

four letters from the sovereigns to secure his final obedience. 
He gained little by the obstruction, however, for in one of 
them his royal master and mistress added a command 
which must have been peculiarly distasteful to the sulky 
bishop. "By those who go out in the caravels now load- 
ing," they wrote him, "you must write to the Admiral all 
that you think needful to remove whatever disagreement he 
may have with you, and you must try to learn from those 
who have just arrived from the Indies what you ought to 
do in order to satisfy him, so that everything may be 
smoothed over by you, and do what is necessary." Clearly 
the pendulum of royal favor had temporarily swung over to 
the Admiral's side. The timely return of Torres with his 
reports and cargoes had given the lie direct to the most 
serious accusations of Boil and his partisans, and what 
remained of their allegations might safely be set down as 
malicious exaggeration. If, while ordering Fonseca to do 
all that he could to conciliate Columbus, the King and 
Queen had likewise directed the issue of revised instruc- 
tions to Aguado, much of the future trouble might have 
been avoided. As it was, the commissioner took out his 
original ambiguous credentials, and the Admiral found 
himself confronted with these at the same time that he 
received an apparently sincere commendation of his course 
from their Majesties direct. If this was royal diplomacy, 
intended to discredit their Viceroy in fact while seeming 
to sustain him, it was of an extremely low order; if it was 
negligence, it is difficult to conceive how it was possible. 




XII. 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 



AGUADO did not leave Spain with his four caravels 
until August. There were delays in chartering the 
vessels and in loading them, and the King and Queen were 
too much preoccupied with the affairs of their kingdoms to 
give any prolonged consideration to the fitting out of a few 
ships for their Indian colony. They had promptly issued 
the necessary orders and the rest was in Fonseca's hands. 
Perhaps the delay which ensued was unavoidable, but it is 
doing no injustice to the reputation of the worthy prelate 
having the matter in charge to suggest that he found it agree- 
able to hold back as long as practicable the supplies intended 
for the Admiral. On the 2nd of June, Ferdinand and 
Isabella wrote him to take whatever vessels he could find, 
"so that they may not be delayed a single hour," and two 
months thereafter they were ready to sail. They took out 
a widely assorted cargo, in compliance with the Admiral's 
requisitions. Large quantities of provision — wheat, barley, 
bacon, salt-fish, biscuit, figs, sugar, rice, almonds, wine, oil, 
and vinegar — were taken; mares, asses, calves, sheep, 
chickens, swine, and rabbits for breeding; canvas, cotton, 
pitch, tallow, and oakum for shipbuilding; rice, barley, 
seeds, and cuttings for planting, and a huge store of lesser 
articles of comfort or necessity. The losses which had 
occurred among the more useful class of colonists by death 
or sickness were supplied by new men. Field laborers, a 
master millwright, a master armorer, mining experts and 
laborers, a physician, a surgeon, an apothecary, some 

227 



228 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

coopers, a horseshoer, several fishermen with their boats, 
and artisans of all the trades already represented at Isabella 
were sent out, to allow the return of those who desired to 
leave the colony. Finally, more dogs — bulldogs and mas- 
tiffs — were also sent, "to protect the supplies and for the 
security of the people," — an indication that the importa- 
tion of these animals was not necessarily due to cruelty. 
The list which was prepared by Columbus shows a well- 
conceived and thorough plan for rendering the colony 
self-supporting, and a careful attention to details. Had 
Ferdinand and Isabella been content to let the fleet sail 
with its helpful lading of men and supplies, and left their 
Viceroy to work out his own projects vj'ith the aid thus 
opportunely afforded, the past disasters would have been in 
great part remedied and those of the future wholly avoided. 
Instead, Aguado, in addition to the confused instructions 
to which we have already referred, carried with him this 
enigmatical mandate : — 

" To the knights, squires, and other persons who are by our 
orders in the Indies. We are sending out yonder Juan Aguado, 
our gentlenian-in-waiting, who will speak with you on our behalf. 
We command you to give him faith and credence. Madrid, the 
9th of April, 1495. I, the King. I, the Queen.*' 

He bore other letters from their Majesties to individuals 
at Isabella, and also several to the Admiral himself. Two 
of these latter have been preserved. They are dated June ist, 
seven weeks later than the extraordinary powers conferred 
on Aguado, and, while dry and abrupt, do not intimate that 
the Viceroy's authority had been superseded. It may have 
been of no especial significance that in them Columbus was 
addressed merely as "our Admiral of the Ocean Sea," with- 
out his joint title of Viceroy of the Indies, but with such a 
monarch as Ferdinand the omission was not likely to be acci- 
dental. In the first of these communications the Admiral was 
told to permit as many of the colonists to return to Spain as 
desired to do so, and to reduce the total number retained in 
Hispaniola to 500, "because it seems to us that there are 
a great many people out there who are drawing salaries. 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 229 

and it is a great expense and trouble to send out provis- 
ions." As fast as newcomers arrived from Spain a cor- 
responding number of the earlier settlers were to be sent 
back, so as to keep the population of the colony always at 
the figure stated. In the second missive their Majesties 
touched upon the burning question of the curtailment of 
rations, out of which the malcontents made so much capi- 
tal. "We have been informed," they wrote, "that in the 
past, especially while you were absent from Hispaniola, the 
provisions were not divided among the people who were 
there, and those who yet remain, as they should have been, 
and that for whatever offence any one of them committed the 
ration was withdrawn, by which many of them were placed 
in peril." The Admiral was therefore instructed to appor- 
tion the provisions, in the future, in strict accordance with 
a list prepared by Fonseca, which accompanied the letter, 
whereby each colonist was to receive his share every fortnight. 
Under no circumstances were these rations to be diminished 
to or withdrawn from any one, " unless the offences should 
be such as to merit the pain of death, for the withholding of 
the provisions from any one is equal to this penalty." If 
this rebuke was somewhat softened by the allusion to the 
Admiral's absence, it was none the less a victory for his 
adversaries; and its promulgation in the colony, when 
coupled with the mysterious discretion entrusted to Aguado, 
was sure to be received as an abatement of the Admiral's 
authority. The whole episode is clouded and confused; 
one fact only is incontestable, — that no governor or vice- 
roy could possibly achieve a measure of success when sub- 
jected to such humiliating and perplexing interferences. 
The sequel proves that it was not the intention of Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella to subject Columbus to the exasperating 
indignities which flowed from their ill-digested orders; but 
a conflict of jurisdiction was inevitable unless their com- 
missioner was a man of rare sagacity and self-control, and 
in this case he possessed neither of these qualities. To a 
person filled with a sense of his own importance, and bent 
upon asserting it in frank opposition to the already consti- 
tuted authority, the opportunity for mischief was unlimited. 



230 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Aguado reached Isabella in October, and Don Diego 
with him. Columbus was then in Maguana, carrying on 
operations against the brothers of Caonabo, who had again 
attempted to revenge themselves upon the Spanish in- 
truders. When the commissioner arrived he lost no time 
in asserting publicly that he held certain broad and 
supreme powers from the Crown. He imprisoned several 
members of the crew which had brought him over, for 
some alleged lack of reverence or obedience, endeavored 
to interpose in matters of colonial government, and made 
little case of Don Bartholomew and the town council. 
The absence of the Admiral was a sore affliction to 
Aguado, for he could not officially proclaim his own 
authority and institute his intended "reforms" until the 
royal letters had been delivered. He therefore proposed to 
go in search of Columbus, with a view of more quickly 
assuming the jurisdiction with which he fancied himself 
clothed. Gathering together a small force of horse and 
foot, he started out for Maguana. As in Isabella he had 
originated, or permitted, the rumor that he had come to 
supplant Columbus, so now, as his party crossed the Vega 
Real in the direction of Maguana, they spread broadcast the 
report that "a new Admiral " had come to take the place of 
the "old Admiral." The consequence was, naturally, to 
induce nine out of ten among the hearers to look upon 
Columbus as deprived of his rank, and to foster all kinds of 
hopes among Europeans and natives alike. 

Don Bartholomew meantime had despatched messengers 
to his brother, informing him of the new complications, 
and the Admiral responded by making a hurried march to 
Isabella. Advised of his coming, Aguado retraced the 
road to the town and there met his former commander and 
endorser. When he proffered the royal letters and creden- 
tials, Columbus declined to receive them unless in public 
and with the ceremony befitting the arrival of a commis- 
sion from the Crown. The little army was drawn up in 
the plaza, all the officials and colonists then in the town 
were present in gala costume, the trumpets were sounded, 
and, with such state as he could muster, the Viceroy re- 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 23 1 

ceived the commissioner. When the documents were pre- 
sented, he accepted them in dignified silence and retired to 
read those which had not been read aloud to the assem- 
blage. All this was formally set forth in the acta pre- 
pared at the time by the royal notaries, but, notwithstanding 
such official testimony, Aguado afterwards claimed that 
Columbus had acted with studied disrespect and indiffer- 
ence towards the bearer of the royal commands. This was 
merely the beginning of a long train of vulgar and ostenta- 
tious arrogance. Interpreting his contradictory instruc- 
tions to suit his own aims, and appealing to the singular 
letters of credence which had been proclaimed by the 
Admiral himself, Aguado pursued a course of intrigue, 
misrepresentation, and usurpation which had for its avowed 
object the destruction of the last vestige of the Admiral's 
authority and prerogatives. It requires no great famil- 
iarity with the conditions prevailing in a remote colony, 
composed of such elements as was that of Isabella, to 
comprehend the effects of his actions. The old king was 
dead; with the new one were the keys of the money-chest 
and storehouses, and the gift of places. Under the Admi- 
ral's government the colonists had been hungry, hard- 
worked, and severely disciplined; under the beneficent 
commissioner they were comparatively well-fed, relieved 
from their labors, and permitted to do pretty much as they 
pleased. They ignored the fact that the very provisions 
they were eating had been sent out in compliance with 
their own governor's far-sighted requisitions, that their tasks 
had been essential to their own safety, and that the former 
scarcity of food was directly traceable to their own excesses 
and insubordination. All they cared to know was that there 
were meat, biscuit, and wine to be had, and that work on 
mills, roads, fort, and government house was at an end. In 
like manner, the Indians recovered boldness and energy. 
The Guamiquina, or " Almirante, " as they had learned from 
the Spaniards to call him, was dethroned, and they believed 
they had less cause to fear the new chief. Several of the 
more daring caciques banded together again and revived the 
insurrectionary spirit, refusing to pay tribute and renewing 



232 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

their hopes of sooner or later casting the white men from 
their shores. Had the issue depended upon the King's 
ex-gentleman-in-waiting, they would very possibly have suc- 
ceeded. 

Under all this provocation the Admiral seems to have 
borne himself with moderation and dignity. Las Casas, 
who never spares him when there is cause for criticism, 
says that he " treated Juan Aguado always very well, as 
though he were a count." The same chronicler declares 
that he makes this statement with a full knowledge of all 
the facts, gathered from eye-witnesses and a careful exami- 
nation of the records. Yielding no jot of his prerogative, 
exercising his authority, as far as he could, with his ac- 
customed activity and decision, Columbus met the arro- 
gance of his rival with irritating calmness, and absolutely 
ignored him in all the affairs of the island beyond the 
town walls. Aguado, in fact, soon busied himself more 
in working up an elaborate indictment of the Admiral's 
administration than in endeavoring to institute a govern- 
ment of his own. Like too many other reformers, his 
abilities lay rather in the direction of disturbance than of 
amelioration. When his claims or actions clashed with 
those of Columbus, the latter upheld his own rights with 
pertinacity, and, despite a certain inevitable loss of prestige, 
managed to sustain his position effectively. The following 
of Aguado was the more numerous, but that of the Admiral 
more influential. Such a condition could not long con- 
tinue. Aguado, after a few months of turmoil and intrigue, 
announced his intention of returning to Spain and laying 
his reports and recommendations before the King and 
Queen. To his publicly asserted intimation of the prob- 
able effects of his disclosures upon the fortunes of Colum- 
bus the latter as publicly replied : " I, too, am going to 
Castile, to testify to the King and Queen, our sovereigns, . 
against the lies which have been told them by those who 
have gone from here " ; and he began to make preparations 
for leaving Hispaniola for an indefinite time. On this 
occasion, at least, he would trust neither to friendly influ- 
ences nor the recollection of his own great services to 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 



233 



advocate his cause before their Majesties. Perhaps he felt 
that the royal memory was as short as the royal treasury, 
and there was a sensitive connection between the two. 

Premising the retirement of Aguado from the colony, 
there was no reason, other than the enforced suspension of 
his own projects, why Columbus should not go to Spain at 
this season. Don Bartholomew could be trusted to keep 
the malcontents of the colony in order, and to carry out the 
work of "pacification" and tribute-gathering among the 
natives. The Admiral had no apprehension of any suc- 
cessful rising among the latter, although there would prob- 
ably be outbreaks here and there to be dealt with in the 
customary vigorous manner. He had caused three more 
forts to be built at convenient strategic points through the 
disaffected districts, making, with St. Thomas and Concep- 
tion, five garrisoned posts in all. In command of these he 
had placed soldiers of his confidence, with enough men to 
hold them against any native attack; so he felt satisfied with 
the military situation. The difficult problem of the reve- 
nue remained to be dealt with, but even that was somewhat 
simplified by recent developments. The king of the Vega 
Real, Guarionex, and some of his colleagues among the 
lesser caciques, wearied with the continuous hardship of 
the tribute, thought to relieve themselves of the burden of 
gathering the gold by informing the Spaniards where it could 
be found in such abundance that they would be willing to 
release the natives from the toilsome obligation of collect- 
ing it grain by grain. Whether this was a disclosure of 
some long-guarded tribal secret, or only the repetition of a 
report brought to his chief by some Indian, anxious to be 
spared the labor of hunting for his share of the tax, does 
not appear. Either case would be in consonance with what 
has happened numberless times since in many parts of the 
western world. At all events, the caciques of the Vega 
notified the Admiral that beyond the mountains which shut 
in the great plain on the south was another plain of less 
extent, watered by a large river which they called Hayna. 
In the ravines and gulches at the headwaters of this stream, 
and in the gravels of its affluents, they affirmed, the yellow 



234 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

metal was to be found in quantities surpassing even the 
greed of the white men for it. Let the Guamiquina send 
his Christians there to see for themselves. In the old days 
much gold had been taken out of this country, which the 
natives knew as Bonao; its treasures might now be used to 
redeem the present generation from the hated impost of the 
strangers. The information was too circumstantial to be 
doubted, and the Admiral lost no time in sending a pros- 
pecting party into Bonao under command of a certain 
Miguel Diaz and that Francisco de Garay who, twenty-five 
years later, nearly saved the empire of Mexico to Monte- 
zuma. This force crossed the forbidding sierra, entered 
the golden district, met with a pacific reception at the 
hands of the inhabitants, and found gold so plentiful that, 
they reported, one man could gather as much there in a day 
as the quarterly tribute for each Indian amounted to. 
What was still better, they brought back a store of large 
nuggets and dust sufficient to convince the most sceptical of 
the value of the new mines. They had found ancient pits 
and workings, such as had not been seen elsewhere in the 
island, which testified to the importance attached to the 
deposits in early days. Altogether, their report was con- 
clusive as to the superior extent and productiveness of the 
Bonao fields as compared with even the vaunted wealth of 
Cibao. To Columbus the news was incalculably welcome, 
coming at a time when he was marshalling every available 
evidence of the value of the Indies to the Crown. In the 
ancient workings which his men had found he fancied he 
saw the mines of Ophir, sought by Solomon of old. His 
own bold conception of passing to Spain from the south of 
Cuba, by way of the Red Sea, recurred to his mind, and he 
thought that by the same route the son of David had sent 
his ships to fetch from Bonao the gold for the Temple. 
Alive to the importance of his latest discovery, he directed 
Don Bartholomew to send an expedition to the mines and 
establish there a fortress to be called St. Christopher, — as 
a token of the Admiral's gratitude for the assistance thus 
opportunely afforded. Don Bartholomew was also charged 
to have the mines opened and worked by the new men 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 235 

brought out by Aguado, and to secure the largest output 
possible during the Admiral's absence in Spain. The 
records do not show that the Indians gained anything by 
their revelation, but the results to the colonial and imperial 
exchequers were almost immediate; and this was the object 
of most import in the eyes both of King and Viceroy. 

While the preparations were making for the departure of 
the Admiral and Aguado, a novel and unexpected disaster 
befell the colony. For the first time since the Spaniards 
arrived in the western waters they were subjected to the 
terrors and devastation of a Caribbean hurricane. To the 
enfeebled and disheartened among their number, it might 
well seem that the Judgment Day was at hand; while even 
to the more courageous there was enough of horror in the 
diabolical ferment of the elements to quail the toughest 
spirit. To add to the consternation of the observers, the 
waters of the harbor seemed to flee before the outburst of the 
gale, only to return with incredible violence and invade 
the land to a distance never before thought possible. When 
the fury of the awful tempest was past and the cowed settlers 
had an opportunity to examine its effects, they observed 
with dismay the havoc worked on their lightly built town 
and among the adjoining forests. What was of most moment 
to the Admiral and many of his people was that no trace 
remained of the vessels riding in the harbor, save the shat- 
tered wrecks of two or three hulls cast far inland by the wild 
rush of the tidal wave. Six of the ships had entirely dis- 
appeared, — overwhelmed, so some spectators said, by the 
first fierce shock of wind and sea. The damage might have 
proved wellnigh irreparable but for the shipwrights and 
materials which had been sent out on Aguado' s squadron, 
in answer to the former requisitions of the Admiral. With 
the aid of these, and the efforts of the seamen who survived 
the hurricane, Columbus began the construction of two new 
caravels of small size, and the repair of the only one of his 
other vessels which was capable of reconstruction. Strangely 
enough, this was the little " Niiia," which thus again escaped 
from dangers which proved fatal to so many of her consorts. 
There is something so uncanny, judged from the standpoint 



236 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

of marine superstition, in the persistent evasion by the 
stout little vessel of the long series of varied perils to which 
she had been exposed in the three last eventful years, that 
one is tempted to consider the story of her present escape 
as mythical. But there is no ground for doubting the sin- 
cerity of the matter-of-fact record concerning her, and we 
must class it among those coincidences which form the 
best excuse for faith in Kismet. The effect of the hurricane 
on the mind of Columbus was so extraordinary that it is 
strange it has not been referred to. It was at this time, so 
Las Casas distinctly affirms, that he assumed a garb resem- 
bling that of a Franciscan friar, "because he was deeply 
vowed to St. Francis." The historian adds that he saw the 
Admiral in this dress in Seville at the time of his arrival from 
the voyage he was now contemplating, and intimates that 
the motive for his humility was connected with the horrors 
of the dreadful night when the powers of sky and sea com- 
bined to aid the unfortunate Haytians in sweeping the 
strangers from the earth. Situated as Columbus was, with 
what he believed to be the Spanish control of the empires of 
the East at stake, the man need not be a weakling who felt 
his heart sink within him at the first sight of a West Indian 
hurricane bursting upon his people and ships. In such an 
extremity it was second nature for Columbus to make a vow, 
as we have seen him do when the "Nifia " was on the point 
of foundering on his return from the Discovery; and it was 
consonant with his recent experiences that this latest vow 
should take the form of an abandonment of the outward 
pomps and vanities of official rank. Such, at least, is the 
conclusion to be drawn from the statement of Las Casas, 
and it is the only one which fits the case. It has been 
often asserted that the adoption of the friar's dress was due 
to hypocrisy, ostentatious self-abasement, politic pity-seek- 
ing, and other motives similarly acceptable to their sugges- 
tors; but these are all based upon conjectures. The one 
cause assigned by companion or follower is that quoted 
from Las Casas. 

There was no lack of occupation pending the building of 
the new vessels. Columbus concerted with Don Bartholo- 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 237 

mew, whom he appointed his deputy, the policy to be pur- 
sued during his absence in Spain; charging his brother 
especially to visit the southern coast, where the new mines 
had been found, and thence to march into the western por- 
tion of the island, which had not as yet been explored by 
the Spaniards. With regard to the colonists at Isabella, he 
enjoined the necessity of a moderate and conciliatory atti- 
tude and the avoidance of all irritating measures. He 
appointed as governors for the live forts, which had been 
established in the disaffected districts, men on whose fidel- 
ity he could rely, and carefully instructed them as to their 
relations with the natives. As Chief Justice of the whole 
island he named Francisco Roldan, one of his personal 
followers, who had been supervisor of laborers at Isabella 
and had acceptably filled other minor offices, and whom he 
regarded as devotedly attached to his interests. Don Diego 
was to assist Don Bartholomew in the administration, and, 
in the event of the latter' s death or incapacity, was to take 
his place. Great stress was laid upon the necessity of in- 
creasing the revenue, and Don Bartholomew was directed to 
encourage the discovery of forests of brazil and other valu- 
able dye-woods, and increase the shipment of these, of cot- 
ton, and of other natural products as well as of gold. The 
small consignments of these articles which had already been 
sent to Spain had led to a demand for more, which promised 
to prove an important factor in the revenue returns. 

Many weeks elapsed before the new caravels were fin- 
ished, but by the end of February, 1496, one was reported 
ready for sea, together with the "Nina," the repairs on 
which were also completed. The new vessel was called the 
"Santa Cruz," and was given to Aguado; the Admiral him- 
self preferred the more familiar, if less sightly quarters on 
the "Nina." 

As the time approached for the sailing of the caravels, it 
became necessary to select the men who were to return to 
Spain under their Majesties' orders to Columbus. All 
who were seriously ill, those who had come out without 
salary and were suffering in consequence, and those who 
had wives and children dependent upon them at home and 



238 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

were tired of staying away from them were to be permitted 
to leave the island. When a count was made of these 
classes it was found that nearly three hundred of the 
colonists were entitled to consideration. All could not 
be taken, and a fierce wrangle at once sprang up among the 
candidates as to who should remain. Some appealed to 
Aguado and some to the Admiral, and a very pretty conflict 
of authority was the result. The commissioner claimed the 
right of making the choice; the Viceroy denied it and per- 
sisted in choosing the lucky individuals himself. Aguado 
threatened, stormed, and requested, in turn, but in the end 
had to yield, and the emigrants were named by the Admiral. 
In all 225 men were granted permission to return and were 
distributed between the two caravels. This reduced the 
number remaining to about 500 or 600, but it cleared the 
colony of most of the useless human lumber which idle- 
ness and disease had caused to accumulate about Isabella. 
Of the vicious, turbulent, and refractory there was no lack 
among those who were left, but at least they were men of 
action; and, if they envied their worthless comrades the 
chance to see Spain, they were consoled by the prospect that 
their absence would assure more ample rations to those that 
were left. In fact, the subject of provisions was a serious 
one, for the colony could ill spare the supplies required by 
the crowded vessels on their long voyage. The stores of 
European foods had to be husbanded with the utmost care, 
for the country about Isabella was yielding little or nothing 
of native produce. In this emergency the Admiral decided 
to turn to account the large plantations of cassava and maize 
which he had observed at Guadalupe on the westward voyage 
two years before, and to call at that island to replenish his 
stock. This involved a certain amount of risk, in view of 
the large number of passengers to be fed for so many weeks; 
but he had their Majesties' especial injunctions against cut- 
ting down the portions of the colonists, and did not venture 
to draw too heavily upon the magazines at Isabella for his 
voyage. 

On Tuesday, the 22nd of March, the two. caravels got 
under way and left the harbor below Isabella, homeward 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 239 

bound. Their departure was attended neither by the pomp 
of Cadiz nor the misgivings and regrets of the return of the 
first fleet to Spain. Two years had been sufficient effectually 
to dissipate from the minds of the colonists of Isabella all 
the glamor and enthusiasm about the Indies; and, though 
the hope of gain and successful adventure beat high in the 
hearts of most of those who watched the ships drifting into 
the distance, they cherished now no illusions as to the price 
of such success. As for the Admiral, some few no doubt 
regretted his departure, but most rejoiced thereat as remov- 
ing a standing check upon their freedom of action. Their 
experience in the new lands he had discovered had not thus 
far been such as to excite a permanent enthusiasm, and they 
were not of the sort with whom loyalty counts for much. 
So, beyond such formal ceremonies as his rank called for, 
Columbus left the capital of his vast dominions without 
especial pomp or circumstance. His little squadron was 
only one the more sailing for home, and he himself was but 
another officer returning to lay his reports before the King 
and Queen. The departure and arrival of such ships and 
such officers was beginning to be an old story to the men of 
Isabella. 

Besides the returning colonists, the caravels carried thirty 
chosen Indians whom the Admiral was taking with him to 
exhibit to Ferdinand and Isabella. Among these, if we 
may credit some authorities, was the redoubtable Caonabo; 
but other chroniclers of equal weight hold that he was 
drowned in the great hurricane which destroyed the six 
vessels, in one of which he was confined. The question is 
not material, as those who place him with the Admiral 
aboard the "Niria" admit that he died before the flotilla 
reached Spain. His prowess as a warrior, and fame as a 
great cacique, interested the few intelligent men who con- 
cerned themselves with the people and nature of the new 
countries, and a number of more or less improbable but 
attractive legends are related concerning him. As the proto- 
type of all the aboriginal heroes of later romance and fable 
he possesses a certain interest, but the fact that within 
thirty years after his death the manner of it was so variously 



240 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

related is evidence that he was looked upon by his captors 
as only a curio of a superior kind. Of more real interest 
was the fact that Don Bartholomew and a small escort 
accompanied the Admiral as far as Puerto de Plata, some 
twenty-five miles along the coast to the eastward of Isa- 
bella, and were landed there in order to examine the 
vicinity, with a view to removing a part of the colony to 
that site and commanding more nearly the adjoining 
country of Cibao. This port had always been a favorite 
with Columbus, and his recent experiences with the climate 
of Isabella had doubtless revived his earlier project con- 
cerning it. Landing his brother and companions, the 
Admiral made sail again and stood eastwards along the 
coast. Contrary winds so far detained the vessels that they 
did not reach the end of the island until the 22nd of March. 
From Cape Engailo, or, as we call it, Cabron, they steered 
direct for Guadalupe; but it was not until the 9th of April 
that they came to anchor off Maria Galante. The Admiral 
was learning to his cost that it is one thing to run down the 
Trades and another to beat up against them. The winds 
to which he owed the discovery of the Indies offered little 
aid for his return to Spain. 

On Sunday, the loth of April, the caravels sailed over to 
Guadalupe and anchored in a convenient haven. When the 
Spaniards essayed to land they were opposed by a throng of 
women who sallied from the forest armed with bows and 
arrows. " Because the surf ran very high they decided not 
to land," the chronicle reads; but the height of the breakers 
may have been magnified by the background of bellicose 
femininity, for two of the Haytian Indians were able to 
swim ashore and hold a parley with the women. The latter 
were assured that the white men intended no harm ; that all 
they wanted was food, and for this they were ready to pay; 
but the women refused to be persuaded into letting the 
strangers land, and told the interpreters that they must go 
to another part of the coast, where the Carib men were at 
work on their plantations. There was nothing to do but 
follow this counsel; so back the Haytians swam to the boats, 
and these in turn bore the report to the Admiral. The 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 24 1 

caravels weighed anchor and cruised alongshore until they 
reached a beach which swarmed with warriors, who, in token 
of defiance, sent showers of arrows in the direction of the 
ships. Here were the fields of maize and mandioca which 
the Spaniards coveted, and the prospect of having a brush 
with the cannibals added materially to the zest of foraging. 
The Admiral ordered out the boats and sent a party ashore, 
who were so warmly received that it was necessary to sup- 
port them with a discharge from the ships' lombards. The 
savages could not withstand the thunders of these novel 
weapons and the havoc wrought by their missiles, and fled 
to the woods, leaving the Spaniards masters of the field. 
An examination disclosed a considerable store of food in 
the native cabins and an abundance of corn and mandioca 
in the plantations near by. The Admiral accordingly 
detailed a number of his own men and the Indians aboard 
the caravels to land and make a quantity of bread, after the 
native fashion, for use on the homeward voyage. While 
this was being done, he sent forty men inland to learn some- 
thing of the country. They returned in a day or two, bring- 
ing ten Carib women and three lads as captives. One of 
the women, of commanding stature and unusual strength, 
who had been taken only after a hand-to-hand fight in which 
she had nearly strangled her pursuer, was said to be the 
chieftainess of the tribe. When she and her companions 
were brought before the Admiral, he questioned them ex- 
haustively, through the interpreter, concerning their life and 
customs. Ever since he had reached Hayti, on his first 
voyage, he had heard of an island inhabited by women 
warriors who could be none other, in his belief, than the 
Asiatic Amazons of Mandeville and Marco Polo. His 
experience at Guadalupe both on the outward voyage and 
this later one tended to confirm the theory, while the state- 
ments frankly made by the captives in answer to his in- 
quiries left little doubt in his mind that the island was 
under the dominion of the legendary heroines. It was an 
additional link in the chain of evidence proving, to his 
satisfaction, that he had reached the shores of Asia. 

By the 20th of April the bread-makers had accumulated 

16 



242 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

a store of that provision, thought to be sufficient to last until 
the anchors were dropped in the port of Cadiz. The 
Admiral therefore made sail and laid his course for the 
Canaries. The captives taken in Guadalupe had all been 
put on shore, with the exception of the woman cacique and 
her little daughter. If we may believe the gossip of the 
ships, the mother was first touched with the misfortunes and 
then enamoured with the heroic qualities of Caonabo, and 
willingly sacrificed her liberty to share his imprisonment. 
Her fortitude and devotion were soon put to the test, as 
were those of all on board the caravels, whether captors or 
prisoners. In his desire to keep as near as possible the 
latitude of the Canary Islands, the Admiral maintained a 
course which was almost directly in the face of the north- 
east Trades. As often as he was blown off this, he would 
slowly and laboriously return, only to be driven away again. 
Week after week passed in this tedious blind beating about 
on the face of an unfamiliar ocean, until sickness broke out 
on the overcrowded vessels and white men and Indians alike 
began to droop and die. To this was added the distress 
caused by scanty rations of unwholesome food, followed all 
too soon by stark famine. " They suffered the last extremity 
of hunger," Las Casas says, quoting from the journal of 
Columbus, " so that all expected to perish. " The biography 
attributed to the Admiral's son Fernando enlarges upon 
this, and alleges that the famished sailors and colonists 
went so far as to propose eating the Indians on board, but 
were shamed by their commander into bearing their suffer- 
ings with patience.-^ A ray of hope encouraged them when 
they caught sight of land and recognized it as one of the 
Azores, but this gave way to a deeper gloom when they were 
driven off its coast by contrary gales and failed to reach it 
again. To Columbus this experience must have vividly 
recalled the perilous days and sleepless nights of his return 
from the Discovery. There is something almost impressive 

1 Those critics who scoff at Columbus's tales of cannibalism among 
the Caribs accept without comment this story of the same villainous 
appetite among civilized Europeans. Perhaps we should be grateful 
that they do not lay the suggestion at his door. 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 



243 



in the persistency with which the elements assailed this one 
explorer on nearly every voyage he undertook. Other fleets 
far less skilfully captained crossed and recrossed the At- 
lantic without let or hindrance; but, with a single excep- 
tion, no sooner did the unveiler of its mysteries venture 
upon its bosom than he was exposed to every form of dan- 
ger known to those who go down into the deep in ships. 
In this instance, fifty-two days were spent in making the 
voyage between Guadalupe and Cape St. Vincent, and it 
was not until the nth of June, 1496, that the weak and 
exhausted voyagers came to anchor in the bay of Cadiz. 
Many of their shipmates had succumbed to disease or 
privation, and among these, as some say, was Caonabo. 

The arrival of Columbus commanded only so much 
interest as attached, in a country devoted to form, to the 
return of an officer of his high rank from a distant station. 
Since he left that port, in command of the colonizing 
expedition, in September, '93, three fleets had arrived from 
and as many left for the Indies. In the minds of the vulgar 
throng, Hispaniola and Isabella ranked with the Canaries 
and the Guinea Coast, as remote and pestilential colonies 
where profit and adventures could be had in plenty, did 
one live long enough to obtain either. The news that he 
had made new discoveries may have engaged the attention 
of the few, but to the populace at large it was only a matter 
of outlandish names. Their conception of the golden 
Indies was not based on increased geographical knowledge, 
but on the emaciated frames, empty pockets, and sallow 
features of the ex-colonists as they disembarked from the 
two caravels; and nothing the townspeople heard from their 
returning countrymen tended to arouse any enthusiasm for 
the lands beyond the sea, or the man who had discovered 
them. They had built high hopes upon the sailing of the 
Admiral and his expedition three years before, but nothing 
had resulted so far for Cadiz or her people. Whether the 
future had anything in store was more than doubtful. This 
indifference was not shared by the crews of three vessels 
which were anchored in the harbor when the Admiral entered 
with his two battered caravels. To them the haggard crowd 



244 ^^-^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

of returning adventurers possessed a peculiar, if not an 
inspiriting interest; for the three ships were on the point 
of sailing for the colony which the arriving caravels had 
left. In command of the outward-bound flotilla was that 
Pedro Alonzo Nifio who had served as pilot of the "Santa 
Maria " on the first voyage, and who was now only too glad 
to meet his old commander before sailing for Hispaniola. 
Nino's ships were laden exclusively with provisions for the 
colony, for a fleet of four ships which had been despatched 
with a similar cargo in January had been wrecked on the 
coast, and the colonists were supposed to be by this time 
in great need. Nifio was also the bearer of the latest letters 
from Ferdinand and Isabella to the Admiral, in which they 
replied more in detail to the despatches brought by Torres 
than they had been able to do by Aguado. These letters 
were now read by Columbus, and Nifio 's departure delayed 
until corresponding instructions could be written to Don 
Bartholomew. The only matters of especial interest touched 
upon in the Admiral's hurried communication to his brother 
were that the King and Queen directed that all Indians 
captured in arms against the Spaniards, or otherwise refrac- 
tory, should be sent to Spain as slaves, and that it was 
desirable to move the colony from Isabella to some conven- 
ient point on the southern coast of Hispaniola. In these 
measures we find the sovereigns readily concurring in the 
suggestions made by their Viceroy when their material inter- 
ests were concerned, however much it may have suited their 
plans to curtail his authority and criticise his methods. 
The conscientious scruples of the Queen concerning the 
natives had been allayed by the familiar sophism that they 
were in revolt against her authority. The change in the 
site of the colony was due partly to the unhealthiness of 
Isabella and partly to the greater convenience of a port on 
the south coast, in view of the Admiral's discoveries in 
Cuba and Jamaica. The information then acquired all 
pointed to the development in the near future of discovery 
toward the south, and in such event Isabella would be prac- 
tically useless as a base of operations. 

Columbus finished his despatches in four days and Pedro 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 245 

Alonzo set sail for the Indies on the 17th of June. The 
Admiral at once left Cadiz for Seville, where Fonseca and 
the officials charged with the administration of the new 
Indian House were established. The King and Queen were 
in the north of Spain; the former engaged on the frontiers 
of France in the war he was waging against that kingdom, 
the latter in the maritime province of Biscay, superintend- 
ing the preparations for her daughter's voyage to Flanders 
to marry the Archduke Philip. Under these circumstances 
Columbus forwarded to their Majesties the announcement 
of his arrival and inquired their pleasure as to his move- 
ments, remaining meantime in Seville and Cordova. In 
those cities he met as many friends as enemies, for the 
bitterest opposition to his schemes and methods existed 
among the followers of the Court, and this was located for 
the time being at Burgos in Old Castile. But there was no 
lack of angry criticism and scornful incredulity in Seville 
and its vicinity; for so many ambitious townspeople had set 
sail with him in '93 to gather the riches of the Indies, and 
either never returned or returned wrecked in health and 
fortunes, that both the Indies and their Viceroy were a 
laughing-stock among the sober-minded. This Columbus 
could have borne, for it was only a long-familiar experience 
revived; but he could not support with patience the news 
he heard on every side, among his seagoing acquaintance, 
of preparations making by Vicente Yaiiez Pinzon and others 
to fit out ships and go on private cruises to the Indies 
under the general license of April, 1495. That he con- 
sidered a direct and flagrant breach of the Crown's engage- 
ments with himself, and the fact that the men who had 
obtained the issue of that decree and proposed to turn it to 
their own advantage were his former followers or associates 
only added to his sense of cruel injustice. We catch a few 
glimpses of him during these weeks of waiting, walking 
through the streets of Seville in his monk-like garb, chat- 
ting about his Cuban voyage and Haytian skirmishes with 
his friend the Cura de los Palacios, showing to his acquaint- 
ance the strange relics and rich specimens he had brought 
home. But, at best, little remains to inform us as to the 



246 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMH^AL. 

manner of his reception, or his own sensations on returning 
from his long and eventful absence. Sometime about the 
end of July he received the answer of the King and Queen 
to his letter from Cadiz. It was dated from Almazan in 
Castile, on the 12th of the month, and was addressed to 
"Don Christopher Columbus, their Majesties' Admiral, 
Viceroy and Governor of the Indies in the Ocean Sea." In 
a few lines of rather formal condescension the Queen 
acknowledged his letters and report and expressed gratifi- 
cation at his safe arrival. " Since you say you will soon be 
here," she concluded, "let your coming be whenever in 
your judgment it will not cause you trouble, for in what is 
past you have had trouble enough." The phrase, in the 
original, is genuinely kind and was no doubt grateful to 
the Admiral ; but what was of even more moment was the 
use of his full ofhcial title. Whatever was the motive for 
ignoring his rank in the missives sent by Aguado, it had 
disappeared, and their Majesties were once more disposed 
to meet their deputy with apparent frankness and cordiality. 
Soon after receiving this letter Columbus set out for Burgos, 
accompanied by a considerable retinue, in which were 
Caonabo's brother and other Indians. He took with him 
all the more notable gifts of gold and other products which 
he had collected, the large nuggets and coarse gold which 
had been found by the Spaniards or delivered to them by 
the natives, golden masks, stone idols, Carib weapons, 
strange birds, and whatever else he thought would support, 
before their Majesties, his persistent assertions as to the 
wealth of the Indies. His journey lay through nearly the 
whole width of Spain, and wherever he went he displayed 
to the learned and curious the tawny natives from the new- 
found Indies, bedecked in golden ornaments and bearing 
their fragile weapons of wood and reed. Ferdinand and 
Isabella were not at Burgos when the Admiral arrived, but 
reached the city a few days afterward. Their welcome was 
apparently sincere and free from all taint of displeasure. 
They listened with extreme interest to his account of all 
that had happened in Hispaniola and on the- Cuban voyage, 
plying him with questions concerning their people and 



INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION. 247 

products and his own theories as to the identity of the 
islands with those mentioned by travellers in Asia. His 
own health and personal welfare were also inquired for with 
flattering minuteness, and much solicitude expressed at his 
severe and repeated sufferings. Their Majesties showed 
particular concern about the mines of Hispaniola, and were 
well pleased with the specimens of their output which the 
Admiral presented. They listened with sympathy to his 
relation of the trials to which the colony at Isabella had 
been subjected, but expressed themselves as satisfied with 
all that he had done. On a later occasion, in writing to 
their Majesties, he records the assurances which they gave 
him during this interview : — 

" Your Highnesses answered me with that courage which the 
whole world knows you possess, and told me that I should not 
care for anything of that kind, because it was your intention to 
prosecute this undertaking and support it, even if it produced 
nothing but rocks and stones ; that you did not attach much im- 
portance to the cost involved, for in other affairs of less moment 
you were spending a great deal more ; and that you considered 
everything that had been spent thus far to have been very well 
employed, and that what should be spent in the future would be 
equally to your advantage, as you believed that our holy faith 
would be extended and your royal dominions enlarged. You 
also said that those who spoke evil of this enterprise were not 
friends of your royal estate."' 

In short, on leaving the royal presence, Columbus was 
entitled to feel that he had the hearty support and approval 
of the King and Queen, and that the intrigues which his 
influential enemies had so successfully initiated met with 
no encouragement from Ferdinand and Isabella. Las 
Casas, who had all the documentary history of these cabals 
in his hands when he wrote, sums up the case effectively 
when he says : " Of the reports which Juan Aguado brought 
and laid before the sovereigns, very little was heard; and so 
there is nothing more to say, or to waste time over, about 
Juan Aguado." 

One significant declaration was made by the Admiral to 
their Majesties in this audience at Burgos, — that whatever 



248 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

he had done thus far in their service was little in compar- 
ison to that which he would accomplish on his next voyage. 
He had given them grand islands heretofore, he told them; 
now, if it pleased God, he would give them a great land, 
"which should be, perhaps, another continent." This, he 
assured his august hearers, would prove to be as certain as 
had the assertions he had made them, before starting on 
his first voyage, concerning lands in the West. This " great 
land," it is clear, was not Asia or Cuba : it was that country 
to the south, of which he had heard in Cuba itself, Jamaica, 
Hayti, and Guadalupe. We have seen him on the outward 
voyage in '93 pondering over the vague hints he had gath- 
ered at the time of the Discovery concerning this southern 
mystery, and planning to explore it later on; we find him 
three years later, with the experiences among the natives 
of Southern Cuba and Jamaica fresh in his mind, telling his 
royal patrons that, if they will but permit him, he will add 
a new "terra firma " to their dominions, in addition to that 
easternmost Asia which, as he believed, he had already 
discovered for them. 




XIII. 

PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 

NO time could have been less favorable for engaging 
the attention of Ferdinand and Isabella in colonial 
affairs than was the summer of 1496. The King was deeply 
immersed in the operations of his armies in Sicily and along 
the frontiers of France, with all the complex diplomatic 
relations attendant upon these two wars ; while the Queen 
was equally absorbed in the elaborate preparations making 
to celebrate the double wedding which she and her husband 
had so shrewdly negotiated with the Emperor Maximilian 
of Germany. The crown prince, Juan, of Spain was to 
marry Margaret, the daughter of Maximilian, and the latter's 
heir, the Archduke Philip, was to wed the Princess Juana, 
the second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. As became 
so auspicious and mighty an alliance, the Crown of Spain 
proposed to challenge the admiration of Europe with the 
splendor of the nuptials. An imposing armada, consisting 
of no less than 120 vessels manned by nearly 20,000 men, 
was brought together at Laredo on the Biscayan coast to 
transport the Princess Juana to Flanders and bring back 
the Princess Margaret, after which a formidable succession 
of tourneys and pageants was to be celebrated by the Court. 
A marriage was also being arranged between Prince Arthur, 
the son of Henry VII. of England, and the princess who, 
in after years, attained a melancholy fame as Katherine of 
Aragon ; and this also involved no little negotiation and 
effort. When we consider the restless and far-reaching 
nature of Ferdinand's ambition, and the ceremonious and 

249 



250 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

scrupulous interest with which Isabella supervised every 
incident affecting the welfare of her children and the dignity 
of her realm, we can conceive that neither sovereign could 
find much leisure to give to their wrangling colonists beyond 
the Western Ocean. Moreover, once they had heard their 
Admiral's reports, listened to his projects for the future, 
and expressed their approval of one and sympathy with the 
other, there remained the awkward question of ways and 
means to be considered. The programme sketched by 
Columbus, to which their Majesties heartily assented in 
general terms, involved the outlay of ten millions of mara- 
vedies at the least. The treasuries of the twin kingdoms 
had been drained dry between the foreign wars and domes- 
tic ostentation. With two armies in the field and what 
amounted to a third on board the Flanders armada, with 
this fleet and the Sicilian armament afloat, and with a people 
burdened with the last straw of taxation and a mihtary levy 
which called for one in ten of the entire adult male popula- 
tion, not even the prospect of adding another continent to 
the recently discovered Asia could induce the Crown to set 
aside so great an amount just at that season. Don Christo- 
pher Columbus, Admiral and Viceroy, must wait, brilliant 
and seductive as were his new proposals. 

That his presence at the Court had immediately and 
effectually checked the progress of the intrigues against 
him is apparent. To the King and Queen the rephes he 
made to the strictures of his adversaries were conclusive. 
They were equally gratified with the evidences he presented 
of successful exploration and with the plausibility of his argu- 
ments concerning a Terra Firma to the south of Hayti, Cuba, 
and Jamaica. They chided him gently for his sternness 
with the Castilian, hidalgos, but accepted his explanations as 
sufficient, and gave repeated indications that, whatever want 
of confidence they had shown in the wisdom or propriety 
of some of his actions as related to them by Fray Boil and 
his party, they looked upon them as venial errors of judg- 
ment when compared with the tangible outcome of his 
labors. He was assured that in the near future his plans 
should be adopted and carried out to their fullest extent. 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 25 I 

and that no amount of calumny or criticism could swerve 
their Majesties from this attitude. In fact, the same in- 
fluences which deterred them from acting promptly in 
accordance with his urgent recommendations had deprived 
the intrigue against Columbus of all importance. The King 
and Queen had now neither leisure nor inclination to sit in 
judgment on the merits of a colonial squabble, and it rapidly 
shrank to the proportions of a dead issue. We have a con- 
cise statement from the Admiral's own pen of the situation 
of this whole business as it existed after his arrival at Court. 
Exhibiting as it does both his own position and that of 
his opponents, and detailing the considerations which in- 
fluenced Ferdinand and Isabella to support him in spite of 
the accusations heaped upon him, the exposition will bear 
translating : — 

" In Spain they vilified and derided the enterprise which was 
inaugurated in Hispaniola, because I did not at once send back 
the ships freighted with gold ; not considering the shortness of 
the time, or all the other difficulties of which I have spoken. 
For this reason, — either on account of my sins, or, rather, for 
my salvation, as I believe it shall prove, — all that I said or 
asked for was treated with detestation and obstructed ; wherefore 
I resolved to come to your Majesties, to express my astonishment 
at such treatment and show you the just grounds I had for all 
that was done. I told you of the towns I had seen, in which or 
from which many souls might be saved ; I brought you the sub- 
missions of the tribes of Hispaniola, under which they agreed 
to pay tribute and acknowledged you as their sovereigns and 
lords ; I brought also a large quantity of gold, to show that there 
are ores and very large nuggets, and copper as well; and I 
brought specimens of many kinds of spices, which it would be 
tedious to enumerate, and told you of the great abundance of 
brazil-wood and infinite other products. All this availed noth- 
ing with those persons who were bent on slandering the under- 
taking and had already begun to do so. They did not weigh 
the service done Our Lord in the salvation of so many souls, or 
say that this was a glory for your Highnesses, of a higher qual- 
ity than that which any prince has enjoyed until this time, since 
the labor and sacrifice were both for temporal and spiritual ends, 
and it is inconceivable that, with the progress of time, Spain 
should not receive therefrom great advantages, as the indica- 



252 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

tions are so manifest from what has aheady been written of 
these expeditions that the fulfihiient of the future may Hkewise 
be looked for. Nor did they care to mention the deeds done 
by the great princes of the world to extend their fame ; as Solo- 
mon, for example, who sent from Jerusalem to the end of the 
Orient to examine the mountain of Ophir, in which voyage his 
ships were detained for three years, which Ophir your Majesties 
now possess iti the islaiid of Hispaniola ; ^ or Alexander, who 
sent to study the government of the island of Taprobana,^ in 
India; or the Emperor Nero, who sent to investigate the sources 
of the Nile, and the reason why they rose in the summer when 
rains are few ; or the other many great actions done by princes ; 
or that to princes these achievements are given to be done. 
Nor did it avail for me to reply that I had never read that kings 
of Castile had ever won any lands beyond its borders, and that 
this land out here is that other world to secure which the 
Romans, Alexander, and the Greeks labored with such vast 
sacrifices. Nor, to speak of the present, was it of any use for 
me to refer to the kings of Portugal, who have had the courage 
to support the Guinea enterprise and the discovery of that coun- 
try, and who have spent gold and men to such a degree that if 
any one should number the people of that kingdom he wouid 
find that half as many as are left have died in Guinea. Yet 
these kings continued until the undertaking produced for them 
what now is apparent, although they began with it a long while 
ago and it is only very lately that it has yielded any revenue. 
The .same sovereigns also had the daring to invade Africa and 
engage in the conquest of Ceuta, Tangiers, Arcilla, and Alcagar, 
and to wage perpetual war against the Moors ; all this at great 
cost and with the single end of doing that which is worthy of a 
king, — to serve God, and to extend their kingdom. 

" The more I said, the more was the effort redoubled to expose 
this enterprise to scorn and to show hatred of it, no attention 
being paid to the fact that all the rest of the world so much 
admired it. and that throughout Christendom your Majesties 
were so extolled for having assumed it that there was no prince, 
great or petty, who did not desire a letter about it. To all this 
your Highnesses answered by laughing and telling me not to 
trouble myself about anything, for you attached neither weight 
nor credence to those who spoke evil of this enterprise." 

1 The italics are ours. The reference to the " End of the Orient " 
has a special meaning when compared with the change made in the 
name of Cape Alpha and Omega on the return voyage from Cuba. 

2 The ancient and mediaeval name for Sumatra. 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 



253 



From the time of his arrival in Burgos, in August or 
September of 1496, to the spring of 1497 the season was 
one of comparative inaction for Columbus, and was devoted 
by him to the settlement of old affairs and the organization 
of his new plans. At their Majesties' desire he drew up an 
elaborate estimate of the cost of executing the plans he had 
formed for a new voyage of discovery, and also a minute or 
scheme of the policy he proposed to follow with regard to 
the government of Hispaniola. These suggestions were 
discussed in a desultory way and accepted by the Crown, 
but their execution was deferred until a more convenient 
season. The Admiral wished to despatch as soon as possi- 
ble two more caravels to Hispaniola, which should take out 
additional supplies of provisions and also a full equipment 
of miners and apphances for developing the mines of the 
island to their full capacity. With a fleet of six more ves- 
sels he would himself sail into the Southwest, in search of 
the countries which he believed lay in that direction, and, 
after discovering these, or proving their non-existence, 
would guide his course to Hispaniola. Other proposals of 
minor importance were made, the whole subject being 
treated in a broad and sagacious spirit, which has been care- 
fully obscured by the censors of its author. In addition to 
elaborating these designs, the Admiral found much to do in 
liquidating the complicated accounts of his government and 
overseeing the adjustment of the contracts existing between 
the Crown and those colonists who had returned, or the 
heirs of those who had died. From the records of these 
transactions it appears that he had advanced from his per- 
sonal resources considerable sums to indigent settlers, and 
shown a solicitude which would reflect honor on any other 
governor to protect the interests of the heirs of such of his 
people as had lost their lives. " Many men, both natives of 
Spain and foreigners, have died in the Indies," he represented 
to their Majesties, " and I ordered that their wills should be 
taken out and fulfilled, in virtue of the powers conferred on 
me by your Highnesses. To this end I charged Escobar in 
Seville and Juan de Leon in Isabella that they should well 
and faithfully attend to all this matter, both in paying the 



254 ^^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

debts of the deceased (in case their heirs failed to do so) 
and in collecting all their property and salary." Both in 
connection with these financial settlements and in his 
schemes for the future the Admiral came frequently into 
open conflict with Fonseca and his heutenant Ximeno de 
Bribiesca, and as he was invariably successful in carrying 
his point, on appealing to the King or Queen, the arrogant 
churchman and his wily proselyte nursed their wrath until 
an occasion for revenge should arrive. 

Columbus was not so absorbed in magnificent schemes of 
future discovery and development, or in strengthening the 
strained foundations of his standing at Court, that he neg- 
lected his personal interests. He remonstrated with emphasis 
and boldness against the general license to make voyages to 
the Indies, granted by the Crown in April, '95, and secured 
the promise of its revocation as far as it infringed his sol- 
emnly guaranteed rights. He also pressed upon their 
Majesties the propriety, in view of the recent disputes con- 
cerning the extent of his authority, of giving him a specific 
and definite confirmation of his rank and prerogatives, and 
sanctioning the entail of these upon his heirs male. To 
both requests Ferdinand and Isabella gave a ready acquies- 
cence. Indeed, everything that the Admiral now proposed 
was apparently accepted by them with the same unhesitating 
alacrity as they showed in the preparations for the second 
voyage in '93. They could not undertake to meet his 
wishes at once, but they were willing to commit them- 
selves frankly to his projects and instruct their officials to 
make provision for their convenient execution. We can 
find no trace, during these and the succeeding months, of 
the intrigue against Columbus. Whatever might be the 
cause of this sudden accession of royal favor, — whether 
recognition of services rendered, expectation of still greater 
advantages to be derived from their connection with him, 
compensation for their hasty condemnation of him in his 
absence, or otherwise, — Ferdinand and Isabella lent them- 
selves to all of the Admiral's proposals with a facility which 
baffles comprehension, if we accept the theory that he was 
a reckless adventurer, insatiate speculator, and visionary 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 255 

romancer. There must have been about this man more 
of what we moderns term " personal magnetism," and the 
weighty influence born of successful achievement, than his 
critics have cared to admit. 

Not even the untoward incident of Pedro Alonzo Niiio's 
stupendous blunder was sul^cient to shake the regenerated 
confidence of the King and Queen. That worthy pilot had 
safely navigated his little fleet across the seas to Isabella, 
and there delivered his cargo and despatches to Don Bar- 
tholomew some time in August, '96. The latter, having no 
other cargo at hand, and anxious to send back Pedro x'Vlonzo 
without delay, loaded the vessels with 300 Indian slaves. 
The fleet made a good passage home, arriving in Spain 
about the end of October. Elated with his successful voy- 
age and aware of the value of slaves in the Seville market, 
Pedro Alonzo wrote hurriedly to both the King and Queen 
and the Admiral, claiming the customary gratuity for a 
signal service and announcing that he brought back his 
ships freighted with gold. This done, he hastened to his 
home at Moguer, carrying with him the letters sent by Don 
Bartholomew to the Admiral. The receipt of such gratify- 
ing news, apparently confirming all that Columbus had said 
to their Majesties of the surpassing wealth of the lately dis- 
covered mines of Bonao, — or Ophir, as he thought it surely 
was, — was doubly grateful on account of the solution it 
afforded to the financial difficulties surrounding the outfit- 
ting of the proposed new voyage. Here were funds in 
plenty for the Admiral's projects, without interfering with 
the domestic requirements of the Crown. " Since Pilot 
Pedro Alonzo has brought so much gold," Ferdinand is 
reported to have said to the Admiral, " you can take from 
it the amounts I have promised you, and more too." There- 
upon the King notified his treasurer not to distress himself 
further about providing the sums called for by the Admiral's 
estimates, but to apply his whole available resources to the 
needs of the French campaign. Weeks passed without other 
tidings from Pedro, and the King and Columbus became 
anxious for confirmation of his assertions. At length, toward 
the end of December, the tardy pilot reached the Court, pre- 



256 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

sented his budget of letters, and explained that his boast of 
October was a mere figure of speech ; that his gold was in 
the shape of slaves, — who were as good as money, after all. 
The blow was a cruel one to the Admiral, for he had acted, 
since receiving the first report, on the assumption that noth- 
ing now remained but to fit out his fleet, adjust his affairs 
with the King and Queen, and start on a new career of 
discovery. It was all the more bitter because of the im- 
mense advantage it gave his adversaries. Neglected by 
Ferdinand and Isabella, they had been compelled to watch 
the steady advance of the Admiral in the royal favor until, 
with the news that a great remittance of gold had arrived and 
the colony was at last a source of large revenue, their chief 
argument was destroyed and they seemed to be finally dis- 
credited. When Pedro Alonzo's reckless folly was made 
known, all their allegations gained new strength, and they 
found themselves armed with a corroboration of their charges 
which surpassed their utmost hopes. Once more the cabal 
raised its voice and, with renewed activity, prosecuted its 
intrigues. 

It was too late. Ferdinand and Isabella had espoused 
the Admiral's cause and were bent on putting his brilliant 
programme to the test. However unpopular he and his en- 
terprise were with the Court and nation at large, — and, we 
are told, they were esteemed Httle better than a jest, — the 
sovereigns held to their faith both in the man and his schemes. 
Notwithstanding this grateful countenance, the winter passed 
in weary waiting. No further word came from the Indies, 
and the absolute want of funds prevented any vessels being 
sent thither. Don Bartholomew had written by Pedro 
Alonzo that he intended to march at once to the new mines, 
found a settlement there, and push the mining operations 
with energy ; after which he should visit the brazil-wood 
forests in the southwestern part of the island and endeavor 
to win over the caciques of that hitherto undisturbed region. 
Beyond this, Columbus knew nothing, and his solicitude con- 
cerning the welfare of the colony was as keen as was his im- 
patience to put his plans into execution. But it soon became 
evident that their Majesties were not willfully procrastinating. 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 257 

Early in March, '97, the fleet arrived from Flanders with 
the Princess Margaret, and on April 3rd her marriage with 
Prince Juan was solemnized. Within three weeks there- 
after the royal secretaries began to issue decree after decree 
relating to the affairs of the Indies, and scarcely a week 
passed during the succeeding three months without some 
provision relating to the Admiral's interests being signed by 
Ferdinand and Isabella. By the end of June all of the most 
important measures which had been under discussion since 
his arrival at Court in August were formally disposed of. 
He was authorized to carry out his proposal — made under 
the pressure of financial straits — of reducing the number 
of colonists to 330, — or 500, in certain contingencies; to 
purchase in Spain the supplies and materials he needed at 
such prices as he should deem fair ; to liquidate the accounts 
which were due in the Indies with the proceeds of such gold 
or other valuable products as might be obtained there ; and 
to dispense with the payment of local and general taxes on 
his vessels and their cargoes. His recommendations con- 
cerning the administration of the colony were approved in 
a letter of instructions " For the population of the islands 
and mainland already discovered and placed under our 
dominion, and of those which yet remain to be discovered 
in the direction of the Indies which are in the Ocean Sea." 
This document adopts without alteration the suggestions 
made by Columbus for reforming the government of the 
colony. The Indians were to be diligently taught by the 
clergy who were to take the place of Fray Boil's runaways ; 
a systematic cultivation of the soil was enjoined, and the 
tithe of the crops granted the Church for its support ; cattle 
and horses were to be bred on farms maintained by the 
Crown ; the colonists were to draw fixed pay and rations, 
but only until the crops should be sufficient to support them ; 
the salaries of the officials and employees were to be deter- 
mined by the Admiral and paid on his authorization ; the 
gold obtained from the new mines was to be coined in the 
colony into moneys corresponding with those of Spain ; and 
the tribute imposed upon the Indians was to be collected 
under the supervision of an officer especially appointed, 

17 



258 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

who was to have five per cent of all that was received. We 
look in vain for a reservation or exception in any of these 
decrees ; they are as frankly, distinctly, and unreservedly 
issued in the Admiral's interest as though no one had ever 
questioned the wisdom of his actions, the extent of his au- 
thority, or the value of his achievements. Boil, Margarite, 
and Aguado might never have existed, so little did the royal 
provisions suggest any divergence of views as to the eminent 
prudence of the Admiral's conduct. 

As if to emphasize their satisfaction with his past course 
and their adherence to his plans for the future, the King 
and Queen signed on the same day three elaborate instru- 
ments ; the first, confirming to Columbus and his descend- 
ants the emoluments and benefits assured to him in the 
famous agreement of discovery signed on April 17th, 1492, 
before the walls of Granada ; the second, confirming to him 
and his heirs the rank and prerogatives of Admiral of the 
Ocean Sea and Viceroy and Governor of the Indies, bestowed 
upon him on April 30th, 1492 ; and the third granting him 
authority to entail these rights and privileges in the line 
of his male successors. Moreover, their Majesties, in ful- 
filment of the contract of '92, caused to be copied from the 
Castilian archives all the letters patent, decrees, and rescripts 
conferring emoluments, prerogatives, and distinctions upon 
the High Admiral of Castile, and authorized the enjoyment 
of like privileges by Columbus and his descendants as Admi- 
rals of the Indies. Apart from the dignities of this elevated 
rank, the salaries and perquisites were, for the day, enormous, 
and by this measure Columbus was assured of a large income 
independent of the returns from the lands which he dis- 
covered. This was not the only provision made for his 
financial welfare at this time. The accountants of the Crown 
were directed to write off, or cancel, the huge sums with 
which Columbus was charged on the royal books as his share, 
under the contract cited, of the cost of the armaments de- 
spatched and operations conducted heretofore in the Indies 
(excepting of the voyage of Discovery, which had been already 
liquidated), but to allow him, nevertheless, his one-eighth 
share of all the proceeds received from the colony. This 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 



259 



liberal modification was also made applicable to the expedi- 
tion about to be fitted out. Still another generous amend- 
ment in the terms of the contract exempted the Admiral 
from contributing, for three years, his one-eighth of all ex- 
penses, while allowing him to draw his share from the gross 
receipts of the colony. 

It has been claimed that, in securing these extraordinary 
largesses, Columbus played upon the too confiding and sus- 
ceptible natures of his royal patrons, and, by his blandish- 
ments, extorted from them concessions which shamed his 
magnanimity as much as they discredited the royal sagacity. 
Those who hold this opinion have been careless students of 
the lives of Ferdinand and his consort. There is something 
grotesque in the idea of Columbus beguiling their Catholic 
Majesties — perhaps the two shrewdest princes of their 
time — into signing away a vast revenue by the recital of 
his dazzHng expectations. Isabella, it is true, was often 
generous by disposition, and Ferdinand sometimes so from 
policy ; but they both were amply endowed with the homely 
virtue of thrift, and were wont to drive as hard a bargain as 
any Jew they had forced across their borders. In releasing 
the Admiral from his obligations and bestowing upon him 
princely gifts, there was some motive other than maudlin 
sentimentahty or blind carelessness.' In our belief, that 
motive was the deliberate conviction that it was to the in- 
terest of Castile and Aragon to heap honor, rank, and profit 
upon the one man who had shown himself capable of con- 
ceiving and executing the greatest undertaking of historic 
times. It was " good business," to use a purely commercial 
phrase, to reward him for what he had done and satisfy him 
as to the outcome of the future. They believed they would 
be the gainers, for they grasped the significance of the dis- 
coveries he had already made, and shared his confidence in 
the importance of those to follow. Some spark of enthu- 
siasm there may have been at the outset, but its last embers 
had smouldered beyond revival by the time of the Aguado 
episode, and what Ferdinand and Isabella were doing in 
1497 was the effect of studied calculation, not of over-per- 
suasion or benevolence. The King was not a philanthropist, 



26o THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

or the Queen an impressionable school-girl. Nor was 
Columbus the hypocritical self-seeker his censors would 
fain have us believe. They pass over with scanty mention 
the crowning recompense which was at this time offered to 
him, and refused, although it was thought by the successor 
of Ferdinand and Isabella to be almost too extravagant a 
return to make to Cortez and Pizarro for the empires of 
the Aztecs and the Incas. Their Majesties offered to him, 
in addition to the grants we have recited, a tract of land 
200 miles long by 100 miles wide, to be selected by himself 
in the island of Hispaniola, with the rank and title of duke 
or marquis, as he might elect. The proposal was accom- 
panied by no conditions ; its acceptance would place him 
and his successors in the front rank of the proudest nobility 
of Christendom at a time when such a distinction possessed 
a value inconceivable to us ; it was peculiarly tempting to 
Columbus, whose chief ambition, as we shall see, was to per- 
petuate, in his descendants, the fame of his achievements ; 
it was made in conjunction with other boons which assured 
both him and his successors a great fortune to sustain the 
honor worthily. From every consideration, the opportunity 
for gratifying a legitimate ambition would seem fairly irresist- 
ible. Yet Columbus declined the offer without hesitation, 
even with bluntness. We do not remember to have seen 
his own words quoted : " I entreated their Majesties," he 
wrote to his brother Bartholomew, " that they would not 
command me to accept it, in order to avoid the scandal of 
being calumniated, and so that the rest of my plans should 
not be lost ; because, however httle my lands might be 
colonized, the evil tongues would always say that I settled 
my own and neglected theirs, and also that I had chosen 
the best for myself. From this would arise disputes which 
would redound to my injury ; therefore I said that, since 
their Majesties have bestowed upon me the tenth and the 
eighth of the products of all the Indies, I desire no more." 
The same pens which allege that his one purpose was " to 
make the Indies a paying investment " for himself charge 
Columbus with consistently exaggerating the importance of 
his discoveries. In the case just cited, at least, he refused 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 26 1 

the most glittering prize that could be offered him, rather 
than jeopardize his hopes in the remote regions he was so 
painfully bringing within the pale of the known world. 

The liberahty of the sovereigns did not end with their 
acceptance of the Admiral's policy and the bestowal of re- 
wards. The friction which had existed for so many years 
between him and Fonseca was in no small degree responsible 
for the delays and disputes which had so constantly arisen. 
Conscious of this want of harmony and of its dangerous 
consequences to the colony, Ferdinand and Isabella now 
proposed to relieve Fonseca of his office of director of Indian 
affairs and put in his place Antonio de Torres, whose devo- 
tion to the Admiral and familiarity with the requirements of 
the colonial situation made his appointment doubly accept- 
able to the latter. Unfortunately, Torres had his whims ; he 
demanded such conditions of rank and authority that he 
finally wearied his royal master and mistress, and they with- 
drew his appointment and reinstated Fonseca. We find a 
few despatches, dating from this period, running in the names 
of Columbus and Torres, but the project scarcely became 
an effective reality ; and thus what was probably the most 
important to Columbus of all the measures sanctioned by 
their Majesties was nullified by the vanity of his associate. 
Had Torres succeeded Fonseca, the following ten years would 
have borne other fruit for the Admiral. 

One of the matters which Columbus had most at heart 
was the settlement of Hispaniola by a more industrious and 
reliable class of persons than those who had heretofore gone 
thither. To this end he solicited from their Majesties certain 
exemptions and allowances in favor of the colonists, which 
were granted as soon as asked for. They exhibit in every 
line a rational and temperate plan for the development of 
the new possessions, and should go far to acquit their pro- 
poser from the charge of hasty and reckless administration. 
One of the decrees which relates to these measures provided 
for the return of all the colonists in the Indies who should so 
desire, and their substitution by an equal number from the 
330 whose engagement has been alluded to ; for the shipment 
of a sufficient equipment of mining tools and implements of 



262 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

husbandry ; for the transporting of the cattle and live stock 
in an old vessel which could be broken up on reaching His- 
paniola and used in the construction of the town to be built 
near the new mines on the south coast ; for grain and biscuits 
to last until mills could be erected ; for the machinery and 
stones needed in the latter ; for a physician, apothecary, 
herbalist, and, oddly enough, " some musical instruments and 
players for the diversion of the people who are to be there." 
A special clause provided for the settlement in Hispaniola 
of a number of priests and friars, who should regularly per- 
form the offices of the church in the colony and endeavor 
to convert the natives. x\nother decree authorized the Ad- 
miral to allot lands to such of the colonists as seemed to him 
worthy, provided that the settlers should cultivate their 
holdings, build houses and mills, and reside at least four 
years on their allotments. All metals, dye-woods, spices, 
and other valuable commodities were reserved to the 
Crown. 

We have been thus minute in referring to these arrange- 
ments because of the censures unstintedly heaped upon 
Columbus by reason of his alleged suggestion that "the 
prisons disgorge their vermin " in order to supply him with 
the men he needed to man his ships on the coming voyage, 
and to keep his colony up to the estabhshed number. The 
decrees we have quoted prove emphatically that he had no 
such intention ; his programme of colonization was equal in 
breadth and wisdom to any which followed it for two cen- 
turies. What he did propose, and what was authorized, was 
that, in addition to the useful and salaried colonists already 
provided for, such offenders against the laws as " deserved 
or ought to be exiled, according to the code and laws of 
the kingdoms, to some island, or to labor and work in the 
mines," should go " to work in the island of Hispaniola in 
such things as the Admiral of the Indies should specify and 
direct, for the time they were to pass in the other island 
at work in the mines." Upon serving one or two years, 
according to the gravity of their offence, arid obtaining from 
the Admiral a certificate of satisfactory conduct, they were 
to be pardoned the remainder of their sentences. Otherwise 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 263 

they were to continue to perform the service prescribed. 
In doing this, the Crown obtained a supply of labor which 
would relieve the better class from the excessive service of 
which such bitter complaints had been made, and, at the 
same time, would not be called upon, to pay more than the 
convicts would cost elsewhere. The arrangement, in short, 
was thought to be beneficial to the colony and a great 
economy to the Crown. It was a great improvement on 
some of the methods adopted, centuries later, in settling 
certain of the North American colonies, the English West 
Indies, and the great Australasian islands ; for the convicts 
were subordinated to the responsible classes and were prac- 
tically sentenced to hard labor in the service of the com- 
munity.^ The common assertion, that the prisons were 
emptied by Columbus in desperation at his inability to get 
enough men so deluded or so ignorant as to join him on the 
new venture, is easily disproved by a reference to the dates 
of the several decrees. The final provisions for the engage- 
ment of the salaried settlers were made on June 15th, 1497, 
and the decrees concerning the convicts issued just one week 
later, on June 22nd. In seven days, during which Columbus 
did not stir from Court and the decrees could not have been 
generally published, the enhstment of the decent element of 
society could scarcely have failed so hopelessly as to force 
him to look to the prisons as affording the only solution of 
his schemes of colonization. 

The Court had left Burgos and gone to Medina del Campo 
some time in May, and the second half of this long series of 
decrees was dated from the latter city. It closed with the 
confirmation, on July 22nd, of the appointment of Don Bar- 
tholomew as Adelantado, which, when made by the Admiral 
at Isabella three years before, had been considered by their 
Majesties as an excess of authority. Its legalization now 
was only an additional evidence of their desire to gratify and 
reward Columbus. 

Another instance of their Majesties' recession from the 

1 Las Casas's testimony is emphatic : " I knew some of these men in 
Hispaniola, and even an occasional one who had had his ears cropped, 
and I always found them very responsible people." 



264 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

position taken at the season of their displeasure against 
the Admiral was given in a decree rescinding the general 
license granted in April, '95, to make voyages to the Indies, 
" in so far as that is prejudicial to the Admiral." That 
license was a bold infraction of the solemn guarantees given 
by the Crown to Columbus. We beheve that it never would 
have been issued had not Ferdinand and Isabella been per- 
suaded by Vincente Yaiiez Pinzon and the Admiral's enemies 
that he had probably perished on the Cuban cruise. It is 
commonly asserted that several voyages were undertaken 
under this permission in the year elapsing between its date 
and the return of Columbus to Spain, and an effort has been 
made to connect Vespucci with one of these. ^ We do not 
find any evidence supporting either of these assumptions, 
and the negative testimony is strongly against them. Under 
the decree of '95, any navigator undertaking such a voyage 
was bound to account to Columbus for the latter's one-eighth 
interest in all the traffic with the Indies, and there is no men- 
tion of any such claim by the Admiral, even when recapitu- 
lating in later years the several injustices to which he had been 
subjected. If the license itself was a gross breach of faith, the 
partial revocation of it proved to be an act of sheer hypocrisy ; 
for no sooner did Columbus get well away from Spain than 
several projects were set on foot, with the connivance, if not 
the actual assistance, of the Crown, to infringe his rights by 
making independent voyages of discovery. Of these we 
shall find the Admiral complaining, and with reason, for 
following so soon after this renewed assurance of his exclu- 
sive rights of navigation ; but, in soliciting the latter, we are 
inclined to think he was protesting against an abstract injus- 
tice and not against any particular act. 

If he were bent only upon his own aggrandizement and 
justification, he certainly had no cause for discontent with 
the result of his stay at Court, long as it had been, when, 
toward the close of July, he took his leave of the King and 
Queen and started for Seville. But, tenacious though he 

^ This was written before Professor Fiske's " Discovery of America" 
reached our hands. His scholarly advocacy of Varnhagen's theory 
gives a new importance to the whole question. 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 265 

was of his rights and fame, these were subordinate to the 
realization of his grand schemes. His heart was in his hfe's 
work, and its success was the absorbing consideration in his 
mind. When, therefore, he had satisfactorily adjusted all 
the matters upon which he desired the royal concurrence or 
authority, his thoughts turned with impatient energy to the 
instant realization of his plans. A year had passed since 
Pedro Alonzo took out the last cargo of supplies to Isabella, 
and the Admiral was haunted with the fear that disaster 
might ensue were not additional succor promptly sent. His 
eager desire to fathom the secrets of the South had only 
increased as time had passed, but his first duty was to his 
colony in Hispaniola. Consequently he urged upon Fon- 
seca that at least a part of the funds whose expenditure had 
been authorized by the King and Queen should be applied 
at once to fitting out a couple of caravels to be despatched 
in advance of his own departure. He even went so far as 
to reengage the " Niila " and " Santa Cruz " for the voyage 
and put his own men in charge of them. Fonseca could 
not find the necessary money for the purchase of the sup- 
phes, and the weeks slipped by with nothing done, until 
the captains of the contracted vessels, Colin and Medel, 
made other engagements and sailed off with the Admiral's 
artillery and equipment. Columbus exhausted every argu- 
ment and inducement to secure the granting of the needful 
credits, but the royal exchequer was bankrupt, and the most 
he could secure were promises for the future. At last, on 
the 9th of October, an order was issued by Queen Isabella 
assigning to the Admiral and Fonseca, for the costs of the 
proposed expedition, three million maravedies, — less than 
one-half of the total sum needed. This was to be derived 
from the sale of grain to some Genoese merchants, and 
would at least provide for the despatch of the needed sup- 
plies to Hispaniola. Almost immediately thereafter fresh 
causes supervened to delay still farther the despatch of the 
vessels. King John of Portugal died, and the opportunity 
arose for fresh matrimonial negotiations between Ferdinand 
and Isabella and his successor. At about the same time 
their son Juan, the heir to the crowns of Aragon and Castile, 



266 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

also died suddenly, and the whole machinery of government 
was thrown for a time into confusion. Additional afflictions 
overtook the royal family, until it was out of the question to 
intrude upon their Majesties with questions of state, and, the 
affairs of the Indies being left wholly to Fonseca, that digni- 
tary consulted his own ideas in complying with the Admiral's 
reiterated appeals for urgency. The ensuing delay was well- 
nigh intolerable to Columbus, although he realized the finan- 
cial straits of the royal treasury and was continually brooding 
upon the best means of enabling the new possessions to come 
to its assistance. He had to stand idle while the Court and 
maritime circles rang with the departure of Vasco da Gama 
from Lisbon, to reach the Indies by a voyage around the 
recently discovered Cape of Good Hope, which, it was claimed 
by the Portuguese, would enable them to get to the land of 
spices and gold without violating the ocean boundaries fixed 
by the Pope. There were also rumors from England of the 
Venetian navigator, Cabot, sailing to the west in the service 
of King Henry, in search of a northern way to the common 
goal of Asia. To the proud spirit of Columbus these tidings 
were as gall and wormwood. Now that he had shown the 
way, the very monarchs who had rejected his proposals ten 
years before were rivalling one another in their efforts to 
secure some share of the world he had unveiled, while his 
own sovereigns let the golden opportunity escape in pro- 
crastination and delay. 

In these dark days he wrote at great length to his favorite 
brother Bartholomew, setting forth his difficulties and trials 
as well as his hopes and aims. The letters had to await the 
sailing of the vessels he was so anxious to send out, but it 
was seemingly a relief to his anxious mind to put his thoughts 
on paper. 

" Our Lord knows," he wrote on one occasion, " through how 
much distress I have passed to know how you are, so that these 
troubles, painful as they are in my relation of them, were far 
more so in fact ; so much so that they have led me to weary of 
life, because of the great extremity in which I know you must 
have been. In this, tliough, you must count me as one with 
yourself, because of a certainty, although I have been here dis- 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 267 

tant from you, my spirit has been and is out yonder with your- 
self, thinking of nothing else, without ceasing, as Our Lord is 
the witness. Nor do I fear that you or your own heart will 
doubt this, for, besides the ties of blood and our great affection, 
the nature of the case and the very quality of the toils and 
perils encountered in far-distant regions teach and constrain the 
mind and sensibilities to suffer more under whatever trial may 
be imagined as occurring there than would be the case were you 
nearer. All this would be very profitable if this suffering were 
endured in a case which should redound to the glory of Our 
Lord, for which we are bound to labor with a cheerful spirit ; 
nor is it fruitless to reflect that no great action can be perfected 
without affliction. In the same manner it is comforting to bear 
in mind that everything which is laboriously acquired is pos- 
sessed and enjoyed with the greater delight. And much more 
I will add to this same effect, but I shall refrain from writing in 
greater detail concerning it, because this is not the first time that 
you have endured, or that I have seen, such trials." 

If there is one trait in the character of Columbus which is 
beyond the attacks even of hypercriticism, it is his unalloyed 
and unvarying affection for Don Bartholomew ; and when we 
find him thus addressing his brother, in the unrestraint of 
intimate correspondence, we may safely assume that he is 
not posing for effect. To allege, with all the circumstances 
of his own and Bartholomew's respective situations before 
us, that these are not the words of a brave, patient, and 
manly nature is openly to proclaim one's own narrow- 
mindedness. 

It was not until the end of the year that he was able to 
get ready the two caravels which he wished to send out at 
once. He had recovered them from their recreant skippers, 
and loaded them at Seville with the supplies most immedi- 
ately required by the colony. Apart from the mere question 
of provisions, he was desirous of pressing with the utmost 
energy the development of the mines, for by this means he 
could the sooner relieve the Spanish treasury of the burden 
of colonial expenditure and himself from the repetition of 
the harassing and degrading experiences of the last six 
months. The tools and rude machinery suggested by the 
Spanish mining experts were accordingly placed on these 



268 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

two vessels, and a dozen skilled miners included in the roll 
of ninety persons of various callings who were to go out on 
this advance squadron. But, as the time approached for its 
sailing, a new embarrassment arose in the difficulty of secur- 
ing colonists, even on the advantageous terms offered by the 
Crown. The reputed mortality among those who had al- 
ready gone out ; the interminable delays on the part of 
Fonseca and his brother officials in paying the salaries and 
allowances of the men in service in the Indies, whereby their 
families in Spain were often the sufferers ; the active propa- 
ganda to discredit the enterprise carried on by its opponents, 
and the well-known fact of the extreme scarcity of money, 
all combined with the heavy demands for men for the royal 
fleets and armies at home to make the task of securing emi- 
grants a tedious one. Columbus exhausted his ingenuity 
and resources in spurring Fonseca to take such action as 
would remedy at least so much of the trouble as had its 
origin in financial remissness. He could not even secure the 
payment of their past due salaries to Carvajal and Coronel, 
two of his most devoted and experienced heutenants, whom 
he wished to send back to the Indies on the two first ships, 
and who had exerted themselves to get together the required 
number of colonists. In a sharp letter which he wrote to 
Fonseca on this subject, in January, '98, we get a clear view 
of some of the embarrassments under which he was laboring. 

"At the time of my leaving the Court," he wrote, " the King 
and Queen, our sovereigns, being then together, I told them that, 
since it was not practicable to provide for the payment of cer- 
tain persons of rank whom I had brought with me, and since, if 
they were not assisted, they could not go back to the Indies, it 
would be well for their Majesties to see whether I could not 
use for their payment some of the money I was taking, or was 
going to take out to Hispaniola with me, to pay the salaries of 
those who were already there. [This I said because] that busi- 
ness was so discredited that, if these men did not go, no one 
would, and I trusted in God that I should find gold or some 
other article of value by means of which I could refund the 
money thus taken and given to them. The King replied that I 
should do as I proposed, considering the position of the indi- 
viduals, so that they might do what they had promised." 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 269 

In virtue of this assent the Admiral now called upon 
Fonseca to fulfil what had been authorized six months before, 
and in the course of another fortnight the Bishop complied 
with the demand. The two caravels sailed from Seville with 
a full complement on the 23d of January, 1498, and from 
Cadiz on the 6th of the succeeding month. They were 
under the command of Coronel and carried as pilots, among 
others, Juan de la Umbria, or Ungria, and Francisco Nino, 
both of whom became famous in later years. 

By this conveyance the Admiral sent out his weighty 
budget of correspondence to Don Bartholomew, — the accu- 
mulation of eighteen months of busy negotiation and con- 
sultation. He informed his brother of all that had occurred 
to retard the sailing of the new expedition ; explained his 
intentions as to the southern voyage ; discussed in detail 
the conduct of affairs at the colony under the regime estab- 
lished by the late decrees ; and gave instructions concerning 
the distribution of work among the emigrants going out 
with Coronel. In particular, Don Bartholomew was to ex- 
pedite the development of the n.ines and the cutting of 
dye-woods, as being the two products yielding the largest 
revenue with the least outlay. He was to seek out all the 
colonists, whether newcomers or early settlers, who were 
adepts in these crafts, and assign to them, in convenient 
gangs, the laborers now being sent out ; while the farm and 
garden hands were to bring the land around the settlements 
under cultivation as rapidly as possible. Contrary to the 
frequently repeated allegation, Columbus exempted the 
natives from all enforced labor either in the mines or 
otherwise. They were to pay their tribute, as before, but 
beyond this were to be their own masters. Exception was 
always made of the rebellious or hostile Indians. These 
were to be dealt with as enemies and sent to Spain as slaves, 
for so the pious fathers to whom the knotty question was 
referred by the King and Queen had decided. The Admiral 
even went so far as to point out that these captives might 
be advantageously disposed of in the Canary and Azores 
Islands, and in doing so apparently had the approval of his 
sovereigns ; for he charged his brother that in shipping the 



2/0 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

slaves, as in the case of all other exports, express pains were 
to be taken in seeing that the Crown was credited with its 
full share. Shocking as seems the proposal, it was entirely 
consistent with a sincere interest in the welfare of the natives ; 
and a few weeks afterwards we find Columbus writing indig- 
nantly to their Majesties that "the revenue of a rich diocese 
or archbishopric, and I even venture to say of the richest 
one in all Spain, would be well spent if employed in preach- 
ing Our Lord's holy name in these unknown regions ; but, 
although there are many revenues, there is not a single 
bishop who, though they have all heard that here are infinite 
races of people, has been willing to send out learned and 
able persons, friends to Christ, who shall endeavor to con- 
vert these people into Christians, or at least make a begin- 
ning of the work." Coming from so devout a son of the 
Church, and addressed as it was to the pious Isabella, this 
outburst is at least free from all suspicion of insincerity. 
Columbus saw nothing inhuman in enslaving his enemies, 
but he considered it a wicked injustice that they should be 
deprived of the chance of salvation. 

After the sailing of the caravels, another considerable 
delay ensued before the funds required for equipping the 
Admiral's own fleet could be accumulated. By dint of 
much laborious financiering this was at length arranged, and 
then followed a prolonged series of disputes, quibbles, and 
conflicts of authority on the part of such of the Crown 
officials as were inimical to Columbus and his enterprises. 
From these unseemly and unpatriotic intrigues Las Casas, 
who was on the ground, is disposed to exonerate Fonseca, 
laying the blame rather on certain ill-conditioned subordi- 
nates whose powers of obstruction were disproportionate to 
their rank. The Bishop has enough to answer for, and is 
entitled to the benefit of the doubt. The culprit, whoever 
he was, had reason to congratulate himself on his success 
in impeding the progress of the Admiral's plans and seri- 
ously jeopardizing their ultimate success. We are told that, 
even after the funds were provided and all the needful 
instructions issued, the work of collecting provisions and 
materials for the vessels was most onerous and toilsome to 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 27 1 

the Admiral, involving not only great labors and grievous 
trials, but slights and contrarieties as great, all the more 
difficult to bear because they were the work of under- 
strappers. Bribiesca seems to have taken an especial delight 
in insulting the Admiral, and on one occasion was knocked 
down for his pains. The punishment was undignified, but 
natural enough under its circumstances. The offence was 
not merely against an irritable vanity. Columbus had caused 
to be gradually collected at Seville, under his own super- 
vision, the emigrants chosen to go out with his squadron. 
These, to the number of over two hundred, were drawing 
rations and pay, as well as the crews of the six vessels 
chartered from Juanoto Berardi for the voyage ; and such 
an expense was a severe drain upon the comparatively 
moderate credit at his disposal. When, to this sufficient 
motive for anxiety, were joined his impatience to get back 
to Hispaniola and his weariness at the long delay in start- 
ing upon his southern exploration, there is little cause for 
surprise that his patience was at length exhausted, and he 
determined to withdraw from the further prosecution of his 
projects, at least for a season. To quote his own words 
concerning this grave resolution : — 

" I greatly desired to take my leave ot the business, if that 
had been loyal to my queen. The instigation of Our Lord and 
of her Majesty caused me to continue with it. In order to 
relieve her somewhat of the distress into which Death had 
plunged her, I undertook a new voyage to the new sky and 
world which had until then remained hidden. If this, as well 
as the other affairs of the Indies, is not regarded with favor in 
Spain, it is no wonder; it is enough that it is the fruit of my 
labors." 

Columbus had been in Seville ^ since leaving the Court at 
Medina del Campo, making such excursions from that city 
to Cadiz, Cordova, and elsewhere as his interests and prepa- 
rations demanded. He had chosen his six ships, as was his 

1 The curious may care to know that he occupied a suite of rooms 
in that quarter of the city known as Santa Maria, and appears to have 
maintained an establishment commensurate with his lofty rank. 



■1 



2/2 TI/E LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

invariable custom, from among the vessels of the smaller 
class, on account of their greater convenience in explora- 
tion. The largest was of one hundred tons burthen, four of 
sixty or seventy tons, and the smallest between thirty and 
forty. They were to take out six months' supplies for the 
colony, in addition to the considerable amount required for 
the crews and emigrants on the coming voyage, which would 
be a long one by reason of the wide detour to the south that 
was proposed. He exercised also his usual care in select- 
ing his pilots and principal mariners, striving to eliminate as 
far as possible all fractious or turbulent characters. The 
command of the vessels was given to men whom he believed 
he could trust, and in many respects this fleet was better 
equipped, both as to personnel and material, than any 
which had preceded it. 

While these arrangements were making, Columbus drew 
up and executed, with all the formalities known to Spanish 
law, the deed of entail by which he provided for the 
inheritance of his titles, offices, and revenues by his heirs 
male in perpetual succession. This remarkable document 
was the work of his own hand, and deserves to be read by 
every one interested in knowing the real character of its 
author, for it portrays the man with absolute fidelity. No 
other writing of Columbus so frankly depicts the intimate 
aspirations of his life and so vividly reflects the influences 
upon his conduct of the age and circumstances in which he 
lived. Opening with that invocation to the Trinity with 
which he began all his formal writings, the Admiral ascribes 
to divine suggestion his first conception " of being able to 
navigate and go from Spain to the Indies, passing to the 
west across the Ocean Sea." After reciting the rank and 
authority conferred upon him by Ferdinand and Isabella in 
reward for his discoveries, the cession to him of one-tenth 
*' of all that should be found in or received from the said 
jurisdiction," and the one-eighth " of the lands and all 
other things," he relates the finding of " Terra firma [Cuba] 
and many islands, among which is Hispaniola, which the 
Indians call Hayti, but the Monicongos call Cipango." The 
results of his two voyages " will be gathered more in detail 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 273 

from my writings, reports, and charts." "And because we 
trust that before a great while a sufficient and vast revenue 
will, under God, be derived from the said islands and Terra 
Firma," he deemed it prudent to provide for the future dis- 
position of his offices and prospective estates, " inasmuch as 
we are mortal." His early departure on a voyage which 
was to be, in a sense, as great a plunge into the unknown as 
his first one, was of course the moving cause of his making 
this entail at this season rather than another ; but the pro- 
found conviction that, little as the world might think it, the 
returns from his discoveries would shortly reach such colos- 
sal proportions that his share in them would equal a king's 
income also suggested the wisdom of regulating its disposal. 
We are wont to call him visionary, when referring to these 
splendid day-dreams, but we must bear in mind that, when 
he executed this deed before the Seville notaries, he attached 
to it the solemn guarantees of the King and Queen of 
Spain, executed under the royal seals, that he and his heirs 
should enjoy forever the " tenth and the eighth " of all the 
results of whatever kind flowing from his discoveries. Bear- 
ing this in mind, and recalling the incalculable gains which 
accrued to the Spanish Crown within even fifty years of the 
landing on San Salvador, no one can justly consider the 
projects as chimerical or his expectations as unfounded. 

The succession was to be in the direct male line, through 
Don Diego, the Admiral's elder son, Don Fernando, his sec- 
ond son,^ Don Bartholomew, his elder brother, Don Diego, his 
younger brother, or their respective sons. Failing the direct 
line, it was to pass to the nearest male relative ; and only in 
the event of the absence of any male heir in the collateral 
branches of the Columbus family, " either here or in any 
other corner of the world," was it to descend to a woman. 
Don Diego, the Admiral's son, was to inherit the whole 
estate, subject to the following provisos : One-fourth of the 
revenue from the estate, up to the sum of 1,000,000 mar- 
avedies, was to be paid to Don Bartholomew and his heirs 

^ This effectually disposes of the assertion sometimes made that 
Columbus neglected his second son, on account of his presumed 
illegitimacy. 

18 



274 ^^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

forever, " for his support and the labors he has had and will 
have in connection with this entail." Another quarter, not 
to exceed 2,000,000 maravedies, was to be paid to Don 
Fernando and his heirs. Don Diego, the Admiral's brother, 
" because he purposes to enter the Church," was assigned 
no specific share, but was to be allowed by the others " all 
that he may need to maintain himself becomingly," and he 
was to receive this allowance before anything went to the 
others, — presumably because of his clerical leanings. 

Having thus provided liberally for his sons and brothers, 
the Admiral turns to more general endowments. One-tenth 
of the whole revenue of the estate was to be devoted to 
charity, — preferably to the relief of necessitous members 
of the Columbus family and to the dowering of its unmarried 
women. At a convenient season, as large a sum as was nec- 
essary should be devoted to building a church and chapel in 
some desirable situation in Hispaniola, to which was to be 
attached a hospital, " the best arranged which it is possible 
to have, like those in Spain and Italy." This church was to 
be called Santa Maria de la Concepcion, and was to have 
erected within it in the most public place a marble block 
upon which was to be cut the following solemn engagement : 
That Don Diego, or whoever should be heir, is to labor to 
support in Hispaniola as many devout teachers of religion 
as the income of the estate will justify (" and for this there 
ought not to be any reluctance to expend all that is requi- 
site "), who are to "convert to our holy faith all these races 
of the Indies " ; and as the income increases so shall the num- 
ber of teachers increase, until " all the people shall be Chris- 
tians." As an additional safeguard against neglect, Don 
Diego and the other heirs were required to submit this 
obhgation to their confessor each time they went to confes- 
sion, and receive his specific assurance that they had thus far 
faithfully complied with it. 

All the income of the estate was to be sent to Genoa and 
there invested in shares of the Bank of St. George, " which 
now yield six per cent and are very safe funds." The reason 
given for this is semi-comical, — "because it is becoming 
that a person of substance and property should be prepared 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 275 

to act for himself, and profit by his revenue, for the service 
of God or for the advancement of his reputation." These 
deposits were to be allowed to accumulate and grow until 
such time as Ferdinand and Isabella, or their successors on 
the throne of Spain, should undertake a cvusade against the 
Saracens for the recovery of Jerusalem, in which case the 
Columbus fund was to be placed at the service of the Crown 
to aid in the holy work. If no Spanish sovereign undertook 
the crusade, when the fund attained sufficient proportions the 
then heir was to equip an armament himself and lead it 
against the Moslem. All this seems fantastic enough now ; 
but, as we have said, in what respect was it impracticable, if 
the descendants of Columbus had received, and invested, say 
for half a century, eighteen per cent of the fruits of the Span- 
ish discoveries in the western world ? When Columbus exe- 
cuted this deed, he knew that they would be entitled to this 
share and believed they would receive it. His long voyages 
in the Levant had imbued him with the sentiment, which 
was still so strong among devout Christians, that the Holy 
Sepulchre must be wrested from the infidel ; and the project 
was a favorite subject of debate in the years following the 
expulsion of the Moors from Spain. With him it had been 
a long- cherished ambition, if it was not actually an influen- 
tial factor in his original plans. That he was under a vow 
of long standing to dedicate to it the wealth to be derived 
from his discoveries is an oft-repeated fact. 

The Admiral charges his heirs to support always in the 
city of Genoa a family of his lineage, so that they may 
depend upon the influence of that city in their favor, should 
occasion arise. The reason he gives is, " that from Genoa 
I came and in it I was born." His heirs are always to use 
their authority and possessions to the advantage of this 
"noble city," and to employ them in her defence in any 
war which may arise with her adversaries other than Spain 
or the Pope. They are also "to support and serve their 
Majesties of Spain well and truly, even to the sacrifice of 
their lives and fortunes," and, in the event of any quarrel 
arising between the Pope and any secular power, are re- 
quired to " lay their rank and properties at the feet of the 



276 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Holy Father " in defence of the Church. It is evident that 
the Admiral's behef was that, in the course of time, his family 
would attain such power, by reason of their colossal wealth, 
that their aid would be important even to the states of Europe. 

Yet there is nothing boastful in the declaration of these 
intentions. He writes with perfect simplicity and naivete, 
as of a future logically assured. He appeals to the grandees 
and councillors of Spain, " that it may please them not to 
permit that this, my ordinance and bequest, may be without 
force and effect, but that it may be complied with as estab- 
lished by me ; for it is eminently just that one who is a man 
of title and who has served the King and Queen " should 
have his wishes respected. He instructs his heirs to use 
the coat-of-arms granted him by Ferdinand and Isabella 
and to employ his seal, without venturing to alter either. 
And he directs his successors, as each shall enter upon his 
inheritance, " to sign with my signature, which I am now 
accustomed to use, namely : an X with an S above it, and 
an M with a Roman A above it, and above that an S, and 
then a Greek Y with an S above it, with its strokes and dots 
as I now make it, and as it may be seen in my signatures, 
of which many will be found, and as will appear from this 
deed." Each heir " shall not sign except The Admiral, 
although the King should grant him, or he should obtain, 
other titles." 

At the close of the document Columbus wrote his signa- 
ture in the manner he had 'prescribed for his successors : — 





• s- 




s- 


A. 


s. . 


X 


M 


Y 

The Admiral. 



^ No satisfactory interpretation of this signature has been proposed, 
chiefly, we believe, because it is usually read from top to bottom, 
whereas Columbus particularly declares that the cardinal members oi: 
the cryptogram are X, M, and Y. It is in keeping with the singular 
strain of mysticism which ran through his character and deepened with 
years, that Columbus should have imposed upon unborn generations the 
use of a signature whose meaning he did not think it expedient to 
disclose. 



PLANNING NEW DISCOVERIES. 277 

One other provision the Admiral was keenly anxious to 
have made by the Crown. Of all the charges brought 
against him by Boil and his other accusers, none had seemed 
to make the impression upon the King and Queen that did 
the allegation of cruelty to Spanish subjects. This was the 
one complaint on which the King had dwelt, in his conver- 
sations with the Admiral, and it was the only one con- 
cerning which he had thought it necessary to utter a word 
of caution. Now that Columbus was about to leave Spain 
for a protracted absence, he feared lest his adversaries 
might revive the old falsehoods and distort into intemperate 
harshness every necessary chastisement inflicted by him 
upon a delinquent colonist. He foresaw that his inde- 
pendence of action in the meting out of justice might be 
curtailed by the desire to avoid a renewal of the slanders, 
and realized that unless the colony was governed by a 
strong hand a revival of disorder was inevitable. In this 
dilemma he urgently requested their Majesties to appoint 
some responsible servant of the Crown to accompany him 
to Hispaniola in the capacity of chief justice. To quote 
his own words, " I repeatedly entreated your Majesties to 
send out at my cost some one who should have charge 
of the administration of justice." For whatever reason, 
the appeal failed ; and the Admiral was left to discipline 
his people as best he might, with the assurance that every 
punishment he inflicted would be promptly reported to the 
Crown as being excessive and unmerited. Well might he 
exclaim, in after years, that " therein I received a grievous 
wrong " ! 




(^ 

(} 


?,<;:==:::: 


^^S^ 


^^^ 


^ 




M 




1^^ 


■'iL /— e 


^^ 


^ 




^^3^ 



XIV. 
SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 

WHEN, on Wednesday, the 30th of May, 1498, Colum- 
bus set sail from the port of San Lucar de Barra- 
meda, near Cadiz, with his fleet of six vessels, it was with 
the clearly defined purpose of adding a new continent to the 
dominions of Ferdinand and Isabella before he steered for 
Hispaniola. Although in this determination he was influ- 
enced by considerations both of policy and pride, the bases 
upon which he founded his expectation of success were 
none the less the outcome of patient investigation and close 
reasoning. His pride was deeply involved, for he had but 
narrowly escaped losing altogether the opportunity of seek- 
ing this new land. Nothing but his timely arrival in Spain, 
in '96, had hindered the sailing of Vincente Yafiez Pinzon 
and the other audacious navigators who were fitting out 
private ventures of discovery in the Indies, under the gen- 
eral license of the preceding year. That some of these 
expeditions would have forestalled the finding of the west- 
ern continent was not to be doubted, for ever since the 
return from the Discovery it was a matter of argument in 
maritime circles that momentous secrets awaited disclosure 
in the southwestern Atlantic. So much had been conjec- 
tured by Columbus on the first voyage outward, even before 
San Salvador was sighted, and all his later explorations had 
only strengthened this belief. A theory so inherently 
attractive to the nautical mind was sure of debate and 
ventilation, and so many capable mariners had been engaged 
in the succeeding voyages to and among the Indian islands 
278 



SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 



279 



that most of the knowledge obtained by the Admiral from 
the natives must have been shared by all. Therefore, hav- 
ing frustrated the intentions of those who had endeavored 
to anticipate his plans of renewed discovery, Columbus 
assumed the obligation of himself probing the mysteries of 
the southern seas. But his rivals were not only those of his 
own household, for he shortly found himself confronted by 
an entirely new complication, which threatened alike the 
integrity of his sovereigns' recently annexed domains and 
his own preeminence as an explorer. The brilliancy of 
the one and the vastness of the other had not failed to excite 
emulation as well as envy beyond the borders of Castile, 
and both England and Portugal were bent on deriving 
some measure of benefit from the far-reaching achievements 
of the Spanish Admiral. 

The efforts of the English were directly inspired by their 
knowledge of Columbus's success both in finding the Indies 
and in colonizing them. This we are told in so many 
words by the man who first sailed an English hull in the 
wake of the Spanish caravels across the Western Ocean. 
Sebastian Cabot affirms that it was the receipt of news of 
the "divine" exploits of Don Christopher Columbus, "the 
Genoese," which stirred his own spirit to attempt a rival 
enterprise; and in so saying he doubtless answers for his 
father as well, for the two acted together. At all events, 
in 1496 King Henry VII. granted to the Venetian, John 
Cabot, Sebastian's father, a patent to carry on explorations 
under the English flag in imitation of those undertaken by 
Columbus, the Genoese, under the ensign of Castile. Cer- 
tain merchants of Bristol supplied the funds and wares 
requisite for the first voyage, and in May of 1497 John 
Cabot, following the lead given by Columbus, sailed west- 
ward from that seaport. In August he was back again from 
his "exploration." In the words of a not unfriendly pen, 
" he landed nowhere and saw no inhabitants." He did descry 
land and coasted it for some days. Modern cosmographers 
think it was Labrador. On the strength of this record we 
are invited to consider him as the discoverer of the western 
continent. Cabot himself, again following his great master, 



28o THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

was confident it was Asia. When Columbus heard of it, — 
as he did at Seville, possibly from Cabot's own mouth, for 
the Venetian was there soon after his own return, — he 
only grew the more impatient to get under way. Cabot's 
little voyage did not affect him directly. It was not in the 
North that the spices grew. 

While the English were putting his theories to this tardy 
test Columbus was watching an enterprise nearer home 
which promised to affect his plans far more seriously. 
Barred by the papal line of demarcation from traversing the 
Atlantic Ocean and confined by the same invisible boundary 
to its eastern waters, the Portuguese had equipped a fleet 
and placed it in charge of Vasco da Gama, with instructions 
to sail southward until he reached that Cape of Good Hope 
to which their explorations had extended in '88, and, round- 
ing that, to endeavor to reach the Indies of Columbus by 
an eastward passage. The Portuguese shared with the 
Spaniards the Admiral's conviction that he had reached 
the end of the Orient, but they appear to have doubted 
whether he was as near the treasures of Ceylon and Cathay 
as he imagined. If, while Columbus was pushing his way 
westward from Hispaniola towards the Ganges, Da Gama 
could, so to speak, take the Indies in the rear and open up 
an easy communication with them by way of Good Hope, his 
Holiness of Rome and their Majesties of Spain would find 
their schemes for monopolizing the products of the Orient 
sadly interfered with. Da Gama sailed from Lisbon in 
June, 1497, and his departure^ was an additional strain upon 
the patience of Columbus, for the latter gravely doubted the 
honesty of the Portuguese designs. Ever since his conver- 
sation with the late King John, on returning from the Dis- 
covery, he had fancied that the wily rivals of Spain had 
reasons of their own for believing that some great land lay 
to the west of Africa, and, Pope or no Pope, were bent on 
settling the question under the mask of a voyage to Southern 
Africa. The sailing of Da Gama revived these apprehen- 
sions and increased tenfold the Admiral's anxiety to solve 
the problem for himself. 

These projects of the maritime rivals of Spain promised 



SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 28 1 

to traverse the whole colonial policy of Columbus. Doubt- 
less the knowledge of them influenced him in reconsidering 
his refusal to return to the Indies. English, Portuguese, 
and Castilians were moving in an intellectual atmosphere 
of seductive mirage, where the Golden Chersonesus, Ophir, 
and Cipango; the Ganges of India, and the Yellow River 
of Cathay; the capitals of Prester John and the Khan of 
Tartary, floated as goals now easy of attainment. They 
might question the correctness of this or that identification 
made by Columbus, but they all shared to the full his gor- 
geous anticipations as to the logical issue of a not remote 
future; and the other nations did not propose that Castile 
should monopolize those oriental wonderlands. Hence 
Columbus not only yearned for the opportunity to bring 
safely under the dominion of his sovereigns that southern 
Terra Firma in whose existence he had such faith, but laid 
his plans for a far broader and more comprehensive series 
of explorations than any to which he had as yet definitely 
committed himself. In doing this he argued from the 
known to the probable with a facility born of twenty years 
of continuous reflection and experiment. No other, not 
even the shrewdest and most observant among those who 
had shared his voyages and councils, had more than a partial 
appreciation of the problem involved. Although the very 
boys of Seville, Palos, and Cadiz knew that "the Indies" 
lay hidden behind the western horizon, the wisest school- 
man of Paris and Salamanca knew no more. With the 
exception of the comparatively narrow area lying between 
San Salvador and Jamaica, the Caribbee Islands and Cuba, 
the farther side of the Ocean Sea was yet hidden in mystery 
as old as the world and as dense as human ignorance. 
Now that so much had been established, many were willing 
to try and learn more; and Columbus urged Ferdinand and 
Isabella to retain the control of such knowledge as was essen- 
tial to their monopoly of the western lands. He accordingly 
addressed to their Majesties a memorial in which he pro- 
posed, after completing the " new voyage to the new heavens 
and world " upon which he was about to embark, to under- 
take " the affair of the Arctic Pole " as well. It was only a 



282 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

daring dream, if you please, — this first design of seeking a 
"northwest passage "; but its projector had his own grounds 
for supposing it feasible. No doubt he was stimulated to 
this by the reports of Cabot's voyage, but he had learned 
nothing from the latter which he had not known before. 
The one-eyed sailor of Murcia, and Pedro de Velasco, the 
Basque, had told Columbus years before of a dreary coast 
spied in the remote Northwest, after a stormy voyage from 
Ireland, which they and their shipmates conceived to be 
the shores of Tartary.^ Cabot could tell him no more than 
that, by sailing west from Bristol, he had seen the same. 
Columbus himself had shown that by keeping to the paral- 
lel of the Canary Islands the easternmost borders of the 
Indies could be reached, and had demonstrated to his own 
satisfaction that by pursuing a westerly course from Cuba 
the mouths of the Ganges would be accessible. The voyage 
he now was planning was to carry him to the south of that 
Asiatic continent ; for, to his mind, the latter could not 
extend as far as the Equator. Since, however, Cabot had 
reached Tartary in his northern voyage, there might easily 
be a means of skirting its Arctic shores and reaching the 
golden lands of promise by a northerly, as well as a southerly, 
or an intermediate route. All means of access to the Indies 
by the west were, in his conception, placed under the undis- 
puted control of Spain by the Bull of the Holy Father ; con- 
sequently, in proposing to essay in succession these several 
possible methods of penetrating to the famous marts of the 
Orient, he was planning nothing which was not logical and 
consistent. As he had led the way in this world-hunting, so 
it behooved him not to allow others to anticipate his wider 
schemes of annexation. Our own conceit of the man and 
his attainments is so apt to be bounded by the narrow limits 
of San Salvador that we forget the breadth of his schemes 
of exploration and the persistency with which he prosecuted 
them. 

In starting out to search for the new continent, he took 
no one into his entire confidence except the King and Queen. 

1 " With the Admiral of the Ocean Sea," Note E, Appendix. 



SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 283 

Ostensibly, he was bound for Hispaniola by a new route ; 
to divulge the fact that he was going to launch out boldly 
into the pathless wastes of the southern seas would be to 
revive among his followers the dread and opposition of the 
first voyage to the west. His theory was that the land would 
be found in about the same meridian as Hayti, and the 
voyage, in consequence, would not have to be greatly pro- 
tracted. In fact, this belief amounted to assurance, for the 
lading of his vessels was chiefly composed of additional 
supplies for the Hispaniola settlers, and he could not afford 
to tarry unduly on the way. His health, too, was precarious. 
The experience of the past year had not been of a nature to 
diminish his tendency to gout, and of late he had been suf- 
fering keenly from an attack of that remorseless enemy which 
had enfeebled his whole system. The long lapse of time 
since he had received news from his Indian government 
inspired grave misgivings as to the safety of the colony, and 
served as an additional incentive for him to hasten his return 
thither. For all these reasons he determined to make what 
speed he could, and limit himself to merely establishing, or 
disproving, the existence of the " great land " in which he 
had such faith. If it were found, its exploration in detail 
could be systematically conducted at leisure. It was not in 
his power personally to investigate all these new regions ; 
his task was to find them. 

From San Lucar the Admiral steered for Madeira, avoid- 
ing all near approach to Cape St. Vincent from fear of 
falling in with French cruisers, as, on the two preceding 
voyages, he had avoided it to escape the Portuguese. A 
favorable run of seven days brought him to that island of 
Porto Santo which was the birthplace of his wife and had 
been so important a factor in his earliest speculations con- 
cerning a voyage to the west. Landing here, he found the 
inhabitants in a state of great alarm at the approach of his 
vessels, which they had taken for a French fleet. On learn- 
ing who it was, they exchanged their attitude for one of 
welcome and willingly furnished the supplies he desired. 
Doubtless with some reference to his former visits to the 
island, the Admiral sought out its little church to attend 



284 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Mass, after which he returned on board and made sail for 
Madeira, some fifty miles distant. Here he was received 
with open arms and hearty greetings ; for he was well known 
by the residents on account of his long sojourning among 
them in past years, and they were proud, in virtue of his 
later achievements, to claim him as one of themselves. 
Some popular demonstration of this sentiment was made, 
in the way of the fiestas dear to the Portuguese and Spanish 
heart, and these, with the stocking of the ships with water, 
wood, and fresh provisions, detained them for six days. 
This brief stay in Madeira is one of the few recorded inci- 
dents which link that portion of the Admiral's career which 
is known to us directly with his obscure past. Here he had 
stopped when voyaging to the Guinea coast twenty years 
before ; here he had eagerly gathered such fragmentary 
indications of lands beyond the awesome Sea of Darkness 
as storm-tossed sailor-folk or observant residents could 
offer ; and here he had received, with his wife, that dowry 
of rough charts and notes which had given the confirmation 
of experience to the speculations of the schoolmen with 
which his mind was already so deeply imbued. Surely no 
wanderer ever returned to once familiar haunts and met 
again his old companions with a stranger tale to relate or a 
more marvellous experience to unfold. 

As if to emphasize the contact with the past, he was called 
upon to revive for a moment his ancient craft as privateer. 
Leaving Madeira on the i6th of June, he steered for the 
Canaries and reached Gomera on the 19th. As his fleet 
approached the anchorage, he saw three vessels already 
lying there, two of which at once made sail and stood out 
to sea. Mindful of the war existing between Spain and 
France, and recognizing, probably by her build, one of the 
fugitives as belonging to the latter nation, the Admiral sent 
some of his own ships in pursuit. The Frenchman was the 
better sailer and made good his escape, but the caravel in 
his company soon put about and came to meet the Spaniards. 
The episode was explained when the Spaniards learned that 
two of the three ships belonged to their own countrymen 
and had been captured by the French corsair, who had just 



SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 285 

slipped through their hands. The returning vessel had 
started to follow him, in charge of a prize crew, but the 
Spanish prisoners on board, as soon as they espied the 
Castilian flag in their wake, had risen against their captors 
and retaken the vessel. As he watched the chase and its 
result, we can believe that for once the thoughts of Columbus 
were busied rather with the memories of his fighting days 
in the landlocked Mediterranean than with the grandiose 
projects of later years. 

Gomera, as the very farthest outpost of the Old World, 
had been his starting-point into the Western Ocean on each 
of his former voyages. On the first, in pursuance of his 
long-meditated plan, he had headed his little squadron due 
west, and held to the parallel of the Canaries with stubborn 
pertinacity, in the conviction that on that course was to be 
found the shortest route to Cipango and Cathay. On the 
second, steering somewhat farther to the south, he had 
aimed to strike the islands of whose existence the flight of 
the birds on his first voyage had hinted, and which the 
natives of Hayti had afterwards said lay in that direction. 
Both of these ventures had proved preeminently fortunate, 
from a sailor's point of view, and in seeking the same point 
of departure for his new expedition Columbus was doubt- 
less counting upon the smooth seas and friendly gales which 
had so greatly aided his earlier passages. Here he decided 
to divide his fleet, sending the three larger ships directly 
to Hispaniola and taking the three smaller ones with him to 
search for the new continent. His motive in doing this 
was twofold : first, to advise Don Bartholomew and Diego 
of his welfare and present plans ; and, second, to furnish 
them with the supplies with which the ships were laden. 
When Coronel had sailed, in January, the future was still 
uncertain, and the Admiral sympathized with the anxieties 
which he knew must possess the minds of his devoted 
brothers. After consultation with his captains, he drew up 
a set of formal instructions for their guidance in which his 
own intentions are exhibited with trenchant emphasis. The 
three ships were commanded by loyal adherents of the 
Admiral : Pedro de Arana, a brother of Dona Beatriz 



286 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Enriquez, the mother of Fernando Columbus and cousin 
of Diego Arana, the ill-fated governor of Navidad ; ^ Alonzo 
Sanchez de Carvajal, whom Las Casas characterizes as " an 
honored cavalier " ; and Juan Antonio Columbus, a Genoese 
kinsman of the Admiral. Each of these captains was to 
command the whole squadron for a week at a time, in rota- 
tion. They were to steer a west-southwest course for 850 
leagues, at about which distance they should find the island 
of Dominica. From there they were to sail west-northwest 
until they reached San Juan — or Porto Rico, as we know it. 
Passing this to the south, they were to sail by Mona, Cape 
Engaiio, Saona, and so, coasting the southern shore of 
Hispaniola, arrive at the new settlement which Don Barthol- 
omew was to have founded. Wherever they should land 
for fresh provisions or water, the Admiral enjoined in posi- 
tive terms that they were to pay the natives in trinkets for 
everything received. However little they might offer the 
Indians, he repeated, it would secure their good will, even 
if they were cannibals, and they would supply the Spaniards 
willingly ; but if the latter should attempt to take anything 
by force, the natives would hide themselves and seek to 
retaliate. 

As for himself, he added, he intended to steer for the 
Cape de Verd islands ('' which the ancients called the 
Gorgodes, or, according to others, the Hesperides," he 
explains) . From there he would shape his course, " in the 
name of the Holy Trinity, with the purpose of steering to 
the south of them until I get underneath the Equinoctial 
Line, and follow the path to the west until the island of His- 
paniola shall lie to the northwest from me, in order to see 
whether there be islands or lands [in that quarter]. May 
Our Lord guide me," he concludes, "and disclose to me 

1 Whatever may have been the exact nature of the relations existing 
between Columbus and the mother of his second son, it is evident that 
they had the approval of her family. The brother and cousin of a 
woman who has been wronged do not place their lives and fortunes 
at the service of her betrayer, especially in Spain. Las Casas — a 
godly man, if ever there was one — says of Pedro de Arana, "He was 
a greatly respected man and very sensible, whom I knew intimately." 



SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 287 

something which shall be His glory and that of the King 
and Queen, our sovereigns, and to the honor of all Chris- 
tians ; for I believe that no one has ever before made this 
voyage and that this sea is utterly unknown." 

In view of later events it will not be superfluous to recall 
the fact that whoever should follow the equatorial line to the 
west " until Hayti lies to his northwest " will, at just about 
that time, fall upon land near the mouth of the Amazon. 
By their own admission, or that of the most honest among 
them, Pinzon, Hojeda, Vespucci, and the other imitators of 
Columbus who successively discovered the great southern 
continent after he had visited it, had secured copies of the 
charts and writings he made while upon this voyage. Under 
the circumstances, it is not remarkable that they all should 
have reached the mainland. What more efficient guidance 
would they require ? 

Having concerted with his captains the course to be pur- 
sued, the Admiral led the way out of the harbor at Gomera 
on the 2 1 St of June. The whole fleet stood for Ferro, 
the westernmost of the Canaries, which had been the point 
of departure for all his calculations on the two previous 
voyages. On passing this island, the fleet divided, the 
Admiral laying a southerly course for Cape de Verd, and 
Arana, Coronel, and Juan Antonio Columbus holding to the 
westward. It was not without misgiving that the Admiral 
watched the three vessels recede in the dusk, — for it was 
sunset when they parted, — and, as he bade his officers fare- 
well, he commended them and their charges to the special 
protection of the Holy Trinity. His care was less for them 
than for the colony whither they were bound, for he was 
haunted by the fear lest his people in Hispaniola should be 
suffering for the want of the supplies he was taking out. 
The frequent mention made in his journal of this feeling 
testifies to the persistency with which it assailed his mind. 

The Admiral reached Salt Island, the nearest of the Cape 
de Verd group, on the 27th of June. Here again he was 
among scenes familiar to him from the voyages of his earlier 
years to and from the Guinea coast, and the sight of their 
barren rocks outlined grimly against the brilliant azure of 



288 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the sea leads him to remark sarcastically that these islands 
are falsely named, for he " had never seen a green thing on 
them." Passing to the island of Buena Vista, — which was 
yet more sterile, if possible, — he anchored in a little bay 
on whose shores stood six or seven cabins, most of which 
were occupied by lepers sent there from Portugal to recover 
or die. His object in touching here was to lay in a stock 
of salt and dried goat's meat, the two productions of an 
otherwise unfruitful soil ; and when his boats landed to 
make known their wants the Portuguese Majordomo of 
the islands, one Rodrigo Alonzo, promptly visited the flag- 
ship to place the scanty resources of the island at his 
visitor's disposal. We catch a glimpse of the personahty 
of Columbus in the entry which he makes in his journal of 
this visit : how the lonely official derived much comfort from 
the good cheer offered him on board the Spanish vessel ; 
how he and his host had a long talk on the subject of lepers 
and leprosy; how they discussed the merits of turtle- flesh 
as a cure for the disease, and thence passed to the habits of 
the turtles which swarmed in the waters of the archipelago. 
All this is set forth in the Admiral's journal with such minute- 
ness that one can almost see him and his guest comparing 
notes of their widely diverse experiences. There were some 
consolations, even in the worthy Majordomo's lot, for he 
said that in certain years the islands brought him in a reve- 
nue of 2000 ducats from the sale of hides from the goats 
killed by the lepers. But he dwelt with most emphasis on 
the hardship of having to live sometimes for months, when 
no vessels arrived from Portugal and the stock of bread and 
wine was exhausted, upon nothing but the flesh of these 
animals, or fish and turtles, washed down with brackish 
water. The Admiral carefully wrote down the substance of 
his conversations with Rodrigo and his few fellow-residents, 
and was clearly much interested thereby. It is only another 
instance of the industry with which he gathered every item 
of intelligence new to his own experience. 

The fleet sailed from Buena Vista on Saturday night, the 
30th of June, for Santiago, the southernmost island of the 
group, where the Admiral expected to take aboard the cattle 



SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 289 

intended for breeding in Hispaniola. Reaching port on the 
following morning, he lay at anchor for several days waiting 
for a herd to be collected, but secured nothing more sub- 
stantial than promises. As at the other islands where he had 
touched, the residents of Santiago visited the Spanish squad- 
ron and offered such hospitality as they controlled to the 
voyagers. Columbus, in accordance with his ingrained habit, 
catechized them freely and gained information which he 
thought bore directly upon the present expedition : Twelve 
leagues to the west of their own island, his visitors told him, 
was that of Fuego, and some Portuguese mariners who had 
sailed far beyond it into the southwest had seen, in the dim- 
mest distance, another and greater island, which had not, 
however, been visited. Other navigators in these same seas, 
his informants added, had encountered canoes, manned by 
negroes and laden with savage merchandise, steering boldly 
from the Guinea coasts into the Western Ocean. Whither 
they were bound was mere conjecture, for no land was known 
to lie in that direction ; but when the facts w-ere reported to 
the late King John of Portugal, that geographical schemer 
had declared that there surely must be lands in the southwest 
which would be worth the finding. This unexpected substan- 
tiation of his own ideas revived in the Admiral's mind the 
remarks made to him by King John in 1493, when he visited 
his Majesty on the homeward voyage from the Discovery, 
and he enters in his journal his reflections concerning the 
matter. He wished to sail to the south, he repeats, because 
he looked forward to finding "islands and lands," by the help 
of the Holy Trinity, and also because he desires to see just 
what was the meaning of the Portuguese king when he said 
"that in the South lay Terra Firma," This behef was, the 
Admiral adds, the reason why King John insisted upon hav- 
ing the boundary between the Spanish and Portuguese 
spheres of exploration, originally fixed by Pope Alexander 
at 100 leagues west of the Azores, removed to 370 leagues, 
for the King calculated that within those limits at least " were 
to be found marvellous things and countries." As he passed 
these arguments in mental review, the Admiral's confidence 
in the success of his undertaking gathered fresh strength. 

19 



290 



THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 



" He who is both Triune and One guide me in His mercy 
and pity ! " he concludes, " that I may serve Him and give 
to your Majesties and all Christendom some great rejoicing, 
such as was that derived from the finding of the Indies, which 
resounded throughout the world." 

During the stay of the Spanish vessels at Santiago the 
heat had been intense, although the sun had not been visible 
on account of a heavy curtain of murky cloud which seemed 
so thick, to use the Admiral's phrase, that it might be cut 
with a knife. These unfavorable conditions told heavily on 
the health of the crews, and they began to succumb to 
the common malady of equatorial regions at such seasons. 
Fearful of a general outbreak of fever, their commander 
determined to wait no longer for the expected cattle, and 
on Wednesday, the 4th of July, weighed anchor and laid 
his course toward the southwest. He gives his reasons for 
doing this : that he would thus reach a position due west of 
Sierra Leone and the Cape of Santa Anna in Guinea, which 
are beneath the Equator, and because " in that parallel of 
the world the greatest amount of gold and other objects of 
value is to be found." Once the Equator was reached, he 
would sail directly westward to verify the theory of King 
John and also to prove the truth, or the reverse, of what he 
had been told by certain Indians in Hispaniola, who affirmed 
that from the south and southwest had come to their island 
a black race,^ bearing spears pointed with a peculiar metal 
called "guanin." The Admiral secured some of these weap- 
ons, and when this metal was analyzed it was found to contain 
56^^ per cent of gold, i8|- per cent of silver, and 25 per 
cent of copper. The legitimate inference was that the 
country inhabited by people whose military arms were liter- 

1 The belief in the existence of a black race on the coast of the 
Spanish Main became a fixed article of faith with the Spanish explorers. 
Certain tribes of the upper regions of the Amazon Basin are dark 
enough to be described as " black," and there is no reason why their 
ancestors should not have fiad contact with the roving Caribs or other 
islanders of the Antilles. Intercourse between the islands and main- 
land, as well as between widely remote districts of the latter, was far 
more general in pre-Columbian times than we are apt to imagine. 



SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 291 

ally of gold and silver must be of surpassing richness, and it 
would be an evil day when such an one should fall to any 
power other than Castile. 

The weather was fair and the breeze light for several days. 
On taking the altitude of the polar star on the night of July 
12th, the Admiral found that he was in 5° of north latitude. 
The next day the wind dropped suddenly and a dead calm 
set in. The vessels seem to have entered, from one moment 
to another, the fiery zone of the early geographers. An 
intolerable heat, such as none on board had ever experienced, 
fell upon the ships, which lay sluggishly rolling from beam 
to beam on the oily sea. The Admiral had been as far south 
before, along the African coast, but the violence of the pres- 
ent heat was so great that he records his fear lest " the ships 
should be burned and all on board perish." The first day 
of calm the sun shone in all its fierce vigor from a cloudless 
sky, but for the next seven the heavens were clouded and 
occasional showers fell. Had it been otherwise, the Admiral 
writes, not a man could have escaped with his life. The 
wine-butts burst their hoops, the water-casks sprung aleak, 
the wheat burned like fire, and no one ventured to go below 
decks to repair or prevent the damage ; for, if life was insup- 
portable in the open air, in the seven-times heated holds it 
was impossible. In all this it is easy enough for us to recog- 
nize the stifling climate of the Equatorial Calms, where the 
sky is pitiless, the ocean repugnant, the ship's deck a fur- 
nace-lid, and the air a debilitating vapor ; or where the very 
rain falls warm from steaming clouds, and lazy hulls rock 
idly to the monotonous rhythm of slatting sails. To Colum- 
bus, notwithstanding his forty years of sea-life, it was all 
new. As day after day elapsed and no change befell, his 
mind was assailed with gloomy forebodings. It was second 
nature for him in such stress to mingle devotion with a desire 
to probe the causes of the phenomena surrounding him, and 
we find thanksgivings for each shower followed by specula- 
tions as to the reasons for such an unexpected condition. 
If God will only give him wind enough to fill his sails, he 
says, so that he may escape from that misery, he will steer 
directly west on the parallel he now was on, until a milder 



292 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

climate was reached, and then would turn south again to the 
Equator. It was an error to have come so far south at once. 
He recalls, " among these glowing fires," that on his other 
voyages the mild temperature and delicious atmosphere 
which had so enchanted all who sailed with him, were not 
encountered until he had sailed 100 leagues west of the 
Azores, and it would have been better if he had waited to 
attain that meridian on the present voyage before steering 
for the Equator. He observed, too, with apprehension, that 
the ocean was free from the great banks of sargasso which 
had so attracted his attention in about these longitudes on 
his former voyages to the west, and that, although the stars 
were changing and the heavens assuming an unfamiliar 
appearance, the temperature did not seem to moderate. All 
this argued, to his mind, a yet greater intensity of heat should 
he persist in trying to reach the Equator in the meridian 
where he then was. Moreover, he reflects, the Azores — 
" which the ancients termed the Cassiterides " — are situated 
at the end of that "fifth climate" into which they divided 
their world, and all below this was supposed to be too ex- 
cessively torrid for human existence. He does not fail to 
reflect upon the extraordinary difference between the present 
experience and that of the voyages he made in earlier years, 
along the African coasts to the Equator, but accounts for it 
by supposing that the forests, rivers, and meadows of the 
neighboring land temper the heat to those who follow the 
coast, while out in mid-ocean no such mitigation is possible. 
It is evident, from the extracts from his journal which have 
come down to us, that this whole episode was fraught with 
keen anxiety for Columbus. Despite his philosophizing, 
there was far too great a difference between this voyage and 
any other he had made, — and that difference too nearly 
supported the older theory of a zone of torrid flames, — for 
him to contemplate with equanimity the long continuance 
of this portentous and distressful calm. The untoward 
aspect of Nature led him, as was his wont, to spend his 
nights in watching and revery ; and his old scourge of gout 
seized the opportunity to fasten upon his exhausted frame 
and add a new terror to his many trials. Some slight con- 



SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 293 

solation was had from the fact that, on the night of the 14th 
of July, the north star stood at seven degrees above the 
horizon, which indicated that whatever progress the vessels 
were making was toward the north, and on the next day he 
was yet more encouraged by the appearance of some birds 
and flying-fish, which he took to be signs of not distant land. 
The same indications were seen on the two following days, 
but on the 19th the vehemence of the heat seemed to 
increase to such an extent that all hands anticipated nothing 
less than the destruction of both ships and crews. This 
proved, however, to be their last day of sufl"ering; for a 
favorable breeze sprang up as suddenly as the former one 
had died away, and in a moment the squadron was once 
more speeding under prosperous canvas into the now inviting 
West. The hearts of Admiral and men alike revived under 
the cheering change, but two real difficulties still remained 
to vex the former's spirits. The stock of water on board 
the vessels had been much reduced by the failure of the 
casks under the fiery ordeal to which they had been sub- 
jected, and the stores intended for the use of the Hispaniola 
colony had seriously deteriorated under the same destructive 
agency. Either of these accidents was sufficient to limit 
the voyage, and it became apparent that no great time could 
be spent in beating about in search of unplaced lands. 
Meanwhile the ships held their westerly course without 
interruption. The Admiral did not now intend to return 
toward the Equator until later on in the voyage, but he 
maintained the purpose of doing so before reaching the 
longitude of the Carib islands. When he did steer again 
for the Line, he would sail on westward until he either found 
land or came to the south of Hispaniola. In either event 
he would have to make his way promptly to the colony, 
both for its sake and that of his own men ; for the ships were 
beginning to show, in yawning seams, the effects of the 
scorching to which they had been subjected, and their con- 
struction was not of a quality to permit of much peace of 
mind once they began to leak. 

Late on Sunday, the 2 2d of July, the wind still holding 
good, the sailors were rejoiced to see many flocks of birds 



294 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

passing overhead from the east-southeast towards the north- 
west. This continued at intervals for several days, and the 
Admiral drew from the incident, as he had done in his 
earlier voyages, the confident expectation of shortly falling 
in with land. The whole week passed, however, without 
further novelty. The squadron's course remained un- 
changed, no doubt because of this hint of land in the 
north. Each morning the watch in the bows of the vessels 
expected to see the welcome blue haze looming above the 
horizon, and each night closed in disappointment. The 
Admiral had no manner of doubt that land was compara- 
tively near ; for the pelicans and frigate birds, which had 
so often heralded the neighborhood of new shores, were 
now constantly seen, and not infrequently lodged on the 
ships. From the presence of all these signs he believed 
that land would surely appear during Monday, the 30th of 
July, and when that day passed without novelty he fixed 
the next one, Tuesday, as the last on which he could afford 
to keep to his present course. If he did not sight some 
coast on that day, he decided, he would bear more to the 
north and west, so as to make Dorninica, or some other of 
the Caribs' islands, before his stock of water was exhausted. 
He had been twenty-seven days under sail from the Cape de 
Verds, on all but seven of which he had made fair progress 
in his chosen direction. If nothing had been found in that 
time, it would not be safe to continue indefinitely without 
putting in at some one of the known islands to refit. 

When Tuesday morning dawned, with nothing but an un- 
broken horizon in view, he gave the order to bring the ships' 
heads to north-northwest, and keep that course, as tending to 
bring them nearer to the Caribs' islands, without altogether 
abandoning their westerly direction. The early hours of the 
day were spent as had been the tedious weeks preceding them, 
and no signs more notable than those which had been seen 
before distinguished that morning from another. Towards 
midday an incident occurred which, considering its moment- 
ous consequences, is best told in the words of the Admiral 
himself as he wrote them in his journal : "■ As His Divine 
Majesty," he writes, " has always shown mercy to us, a 



SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 



295 



certain seaman of Huelva, — one of my servants, — named 
Alonzo Perez,^ by chance climbed up into the crow's-nest to 
look about, and descried land in the west, at fifteen leagues' 
distance, and what was visible of it was three mogotes, or 
three mountains." The announcement that land was in 
sight from the masthead was soon followed by the rising of 
the blue summits above the horizon, and the wearied 
voyagers gave vent to their joy with an effusiveness pro- 
portioned to their recent trials. All joined in chanting the 
Salve Regina, " with other pious verses and couplets con- 
taining praises to God and Our Lady," and the Admiral 
formally bestowed on the yet distant shores the name of 
Trinidad, in honor of the Holy Trinity, and in allusion to 
the triple peak now gradually assuming shape before his 
eyes. " It has pleased Our Lord," he writes, " for His 
divine glory, that the first sight was three mogotes, all 
united ; I should say three mountains, all at one time and 
in one view. May His Mightiness, through His mercy, so 
guide me that He may be greatly served and your Majesties 
derive much delight from this ; for it is certain that the find- 
ing of land in this quarter was as great a miracle as was the 
finding of it on the first voyage." 

The Admiral indulged in no rash speculations as to the 
territorial extent of this latest landfall. He had found too 
many great islands with towering mountain chains to per- 
mit himself, without further evidence, the grateful illusion 
that this was the Terra Firma he was seeking. But, whether 
it should prove to be this or only another Guadalupe or 
Dominica, it did possess the distinctive value of showing 
that land lay beneath the Equator in the West as well as 
in the East, and that the new world whose gate he had 
opened at San Salvador, and which Cabot had found 
reached into the farthest North, extended indefinitely toward 

1 Our readers will recall that Columbus was careful to credit one of 
his sailors, Juan Rodriguez Bermejo, with the first sight of Guanahani 
in 1492. In now crediting Alonzo Perez with the first sight of the new 
continent, it seems to us that he furnished a conclusive answer to the 
modern allegation that he sought to appropriate to himself the merits 
of his subordinates. 



296 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the unplaced southern pole. He realized, even at this early 
day, that the establishing of its extent lay beyond his sphere 
of duty and must necessarily fall to others. The arguments 
of Jayme Ferrer, who had urged him in 1495 to prosecute 
his plans of trans- equatorial investigation, and of the older 
philosophers recurred with fresh force to his mind. In the 
South lay the greatest treasures. So it had proved in Africa, 
and so it would prove here, if he might judge by those spear- 
heads of guanin. " I am now in the same parallel as that 
from which the gold is taken for the King of Portugal," he 
wrote in his journal, " and whoever shall explore these seas 
should find things of great value." This partial justification 
of his theory of a southern continent he attributes modestly 
to Divine mercy, — " for there is no man in the world to 
whom God has shown such grace." He rejoices in con- 
templating the satisfaction with which Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella will receive the tidings of his success, and reverts with 
a natural pride to the prophecies of evil which " the wicked 
tongues and false witnesses through envy related " concern- 
ing the outcome of his undertaking. " Even should no 
other advantage result," he writes, "except these beautiful 
lands which are so fertile and so filled with forests and 
palm-trees that they put to shame the gardens of Valencia 
in May, they ought to be held in high esteem." And he 
closes his reflections with the pregnant remark " that it is a 
miracle that as near to the Equator as 6° the sovereigns of 
Castile now possess dominions, whereas Isabella is distant 
24° from the Equatorial Line." 

He might have made San Salvador, four degrees farther 
north, his basis of calculation. To have added, in six 
years, to the petty acreage of Aragon and Castile an empire 
already to be estimated only by climatic zones, one whose 
limits might, without extravagance, even then be supposed 
to rival those of Africa, was a vaster achievement in the 
closing years of the fifteenth century than it appears in those 
of the nineteenth. We may search with all the captious- 
ness of prejudice in the writings of Columbus, even when 
he was presumably in the full flush of a triumphant vindica- 
tion of his much-maligned project, and we shall fail to find 



SEEKING THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. 



297 



a word of vaunting or vainglory. He knew far less of 
geography than most of his modern critics and was un- 
speakably their inferior in the art of self-advertisement, but 
he had an uncanny habit of working out by courage, endur- 
ance, and patient faith the problems he set himself to solve. 
That he fully reahzed the scope of these, his future course 
will show. 





XV. 
"THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLD." 

NIGHT was falling when the squadron approached the 
shores of Trinidad, a httle to the north of the point 
of land which had been first seen. The Admiral had called 
this Galley Point, from a rock which bore some resem- 
blance to one of those crafts under sail, and had altered 
his course for it as soon as the land lifted so that the 
coast-line was apparent. As he drew nearer he scanned 
its every feature with anxious attention, for he half feared 
lest he should find the regions so near the Equator less in- 
viting than the fertile islands farther north. To his great 
contentment the mountains and shore were alike covered 
with luxuriant forests which yielded nothing in beauty to 
those of Hayti and Cuba. Finding no safe anchorage near 
where he first made the land, he put about and stood south- 
wards, along the coast, intending to find shelter behind the 
cape. Darkness closed in before a harbor was found, but 
in the meantime the Admiral had noticed a number of 
people gathering on the beach, together with houses and 
signs of extensive cultivation. A canoe manned by natives 
was also discovered, and, although they paddled away in 
fright, there was no question as to the country being well 
populated by a race at least equal to the Haytians in de- 
velopment. The vessels lay to over night, and on the fol- 
lowing day, the first of August, doubling Galley Point, sailed 
down the coast to the west. By this time the Admiral was 
satisfied that he was skirting an island ; doubtless because, 
from the cape named (the modern Point Galeota), he could 



''THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLD P 299 

discern the abrupt angle which the southern and eastern 
shores of Trinidad there make. The lofty mountains which 
showed inland, with the long extent of visible coast, satisfied 
him that the island was a large one. He pursued his way, 
searching for a place where a landing might be effected and 
speech had with the people, until a cove was reached where 
he came to anchor and sent men ashore. They reported 
that they had found fishing-implements and other signs of 
habitation, but had seen nobody. They spoke with enthu- 
siasm of the country's fertility, and said that great palms, 
lignum-aloes, and other valuable trees abounded, and that 
among the tracks of other animals they had found those of 
goats. What was of more immediate importance, they had 
come upon both springs and streams of delicious water, 
wherefrom the exhausted casks on board ship could be 
replenished. All this was welcome news to their commander, 
as confirming the impression he had derived from scruti- 
nizing the shores as he sailed by them. From this anchorage 
he could clearly distinguish other land to the south, although 
at a distance of many leagues. It appeared to extend for 
eighty miles or more,^ east and west, and to be an island, 
whereupon he named it Sancta, or Holy, as a complement 
to that already called Trinity. On the next day, the 2nd, 
he weighed anchor and continued westward down the coast 
of Trinidad, saihng close inshore so that he might examine 
the country as he passed along, and watching meantime the 
Holy Island, which lay afar off in the south. He began to 
be impressed by the obvious size of the latter, for it seemed 
to extend into the remote distance ahead of him : " it must 
be very great," he entered in his journal. His attention 
was diverted from it by the approach of a huge canoe, con- 
taining a couple of dozen men, which bore swiftly down 
upon the squadron from the east. It was checked when a 
gunshot from the ships, and its occupants hailed the white 
men in a loud voice and with many words, the meaning of 
which was lost upon their hearers. As the most intelligible 

^ " He might properly have said for 2000," is the comment of Las 
Casas, " for this was the Terra Firma." 



300 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

reply possible under the circumstances, the Admiral caused 
a number of tin basins and other shining objects to be dis- 
played, at the same time inviting the natives by signs to 
come nearer. This they did by degrees, advancing a little 
and then retreating, but always keeping at a safe distance. 
After two hours spent in this fashion, the Admiral sent a 
party of the sailors up on the poop-deck to dance to the 
music of a drum and fife, thinking by this act of evident 
good-fellowship to satisfy his visitors of his amicable inten- 
tions. To his surprise they instantly dropped their paddles, 
grasped every man a shield, bow, and quiver from the bottom 
of the canoe, and in a twinkling had sent a goodly flight of 
arrows toward the vessels. The Admiral stopped the danc- 
ing and ordered a couple of cross-bows to be discharged in 
the direction of the canoe, as a warning to the bellicose In- 
dians. The effect of this was as unexpected as that of the 
music, for they at once laid down their weapons and paddled 
quickly away from the flagship and under the stern of one 
of the caravels. The pilot of that vessel, hastily gathering 
together some trinkets, dropped a rope over the ship's side 
and slid down into the canoe. Singling out the leader of 
the band, he gave him a cap and skirt such as the Spanish 
sailors wore, while to each of the others he gave a trifle of 
some sort. The Indians seemed dehghted with their re- 
ception and made signs that the pilot should accompany 
them ashore, which he, nothing loth, signified he would do. 
But when he entered his own boat, and rowed ofl" to the 
flagship to get the Admiral's consent, the Indians seized 
their paddles and sped away, as though fearful of some 
treachery. 

No one had been so close an observer of all that had 
occurred during this incident as the Admiral himself. These 
were the first inhabitants of the southern lands whom he had 
seen near at hand, and their every movement was watched 
with extreme interest. According to all the learned theories 
of the times, supported, as to the older world, by the evi- 
dences accumulated in Africa, and, as to the new, by the 
reports of the Haytians, the natives of the South should be 
black. Instead, the Admiral remarked that, " although they 



''THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLD." 30 1 

are so near the Equinoctial, they are not black, but Indian 
color, like all the others who have been discovered." If 
anything, they were less tawny than the Haytians. Of good 
stature and proportions, they were easy and graceful in their 
movements, naked, except at the waist, wearing the hair 
long and banged at the forehead like the Spaniards them- 
selves, and with the head wrapped with a scarf of gaudy 
colors. Their weapons were better made and more service- 
able than those of the northern islanders, especially their 
arrows, which were bone-tipped and barbed. Their cloths 
were superior in quality to any before found in the Indies, 
and the whole appearance of the men indicated a higher 
type. To the Admiral all these indications were significant. 
They lent support to the theory that in the unknown South 
both Nature and mankind were more inviting than in the 
North, and that his latest exploit was likely to prove his 
greatest. Every gesture of his visitors was studied with 
thoughtful regard, in the hope of extracting some intelligent 
meaning, and at length he gathered that they wished to 
know, among other things, whether the strangers had not 
come from still farther south. This interpretation, whether 
right or wrong, at once suggested a weighty inference to the 
Admiral's mind : " Toward the south there must be great 
countries," is the conclusion he reaches, after entering the 
incident in his journal. And thereafter his thoughts turned 
naturally to the distant coast of the Holy Island. 

Continuing his westward course, he came to the long 
tongue of land which forms the southwestern extremity of 
Trinidad, where the coast of that island turns abruptly to 
the north. This cape the Admiral named Arenal, or 
Sandy ^ Point, and, as it offered a convenient harbor, decided 
to come to anchor and allow his men liberty to go ashore. 
The following day, August 3rd, was passed in this manner, 
the ships' companies spreading through the neighborhood, 
revelling in their strange and beautiful surroundings and 
devoting themselves to the enjoyment of an experience as 
novel as it was fascinating. The Admiral himself, preoccu- 

^ It is called Point Icacos on the modern maps of Trinidad. 



302 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

pied with his desire to compare these equatorial countries 
with those farther north, committed to paper the result of 
his own careful observations. What astonished him most 
was the notable difiference between Nature and man in this 
western world and in the same latitude in Africa. The 
climate, he records, was much more temperate, as was evi- 
denced by the lighter color of the natives and their straight 
locks. Indeed, notwithstanding the fact that the sun was 
in the constellation Leo, the mornings were so cool as to 
make a heavy cloak necessary for comfort. The forests were 
far more luxuriant in their growth, coming down to the 
water's edge as though undisturbed by storms. The rise 
and fall of the tides were much greater than in Spain, and 
the currents very swift. The fruits and birds were more 
varied in kind and of larger size than those of Hispaniola. 
Oysters abounded in the shallow waters, — an indication of 
much promise to one whose thoughts were of the pearls and 
gems of the Orient. The men reported an infinite number 
of tracks of small animals, which they supposed to be goats, 
and this also was different from Hispaniola and Cuba, for 
there were no animals in those countries larger than conies. 
In short, just as the Admiral had always found the climate 
change for the better on reaching a longitude loo degrees 
west of the Azores, so now he found it still milder and more 
temperate the farther south he had proceeded in the 
western world. A comparison between this amenity and 
the terrifying heat encountered so short a time before on 
this same parallel farther east was inevitable. 

From Point Arenal the coast of Holy Island was clearly 
visible, the tv/o being separated only by a narrow channel 
eight or ten miles wide. As the vessels had drawn nearer 
the western cape, the opposite shores had also approached 
until now they seemed close at hand. Looking to the west 
and north, Holy Island seemed to trend away in the former 
direction until it disappeared in the distance, but in the lat- 
ter quarter a range of mountains was visible, seemingly on a 
third island distinct from both Holy and Trinidad. To this 
new discovery the Admiral gave the name of Gracia, or 
Mercy, Island. Its contour was so much more imposing 



« THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLD." 303 

than the comparatively low shores of Holy Island that he 
decided to make for it, but before leaving the security of his 
anchorage he wished, as a prudent navigator, to learn some- 
thing of the waters through which he must pass. Several 
strange circumstances had arrested the sailors' attention. 
The narrow channel between Point Arenal and the nearest 
part of Sancta was broken by several islets. The currents 
raced through it, from south to north, with extraordinary 
velocity, creating a series of swirls and eddies which hinted 
of sunken rocks and reefs. The Admiral noticed that this 
continued both night and day, and likens it to the fury of the 
Guadalquivir in its times of flood. To retrace his course 
against such a constant tide, and the prevailing wind as well, 
seemed to be well-nigh hopeless; to risk his ships in those 
unknown whirlpools would be madness. As he was turning 
this situation over in his mind at night, a new anxiety was 
added in a sinister roar which, originating in the south, drew 
rapidly nearer and gathered force as it advanced. To his 
horror the Admiral saw a huge wave, crested with a line of 
glowing phosphorescence, rushing upon the vessels out of 
the darkness. To his disturbed vision it seemed to be as 
lofty as the ships themselves, and he looked for the instant 
destruction of his crafts and all they contained. The 
huge breaker bore down upon them, hung above their coun- 
ters for a moment, and then, passing harmlessly beneath 
them, went roaring and spuming into the blackness of the 
channel beyond, where the startled voyagers heard it crash- 
ing and hissing for some time after. To all on board the 
three ships the escape seemed pure miracle. One of the 
caravels was lifted so that her anchors cleared the ground, 
and borne some distance off by the great wave. " Even to- 
day," the Admiral states in describing this experience, "I 
feel a chill of fear because it did not overwhelm the ship 
when it passed underneath her. By reason of this great 
peril I have called this channel the Serpent's Mouth." As 
such it stands on our maps to the present time, a mute wit- 
ness that the feeling has been shared by other navigators 
who have essayed the passage since Columbus. Those of 
our readers who have been overtaken by the g\2X± pororoca 



304 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

of the Amazon or the Orinoco, particularly at night, will not 
be inclined to cavil at the sentiment.^ 

Impatient to leave an anchorage fraught with such dan- 
gers, the Admiral sent a boat next morning to sound the 
channel, determined, if a passage were possible, to force his 
way through its angry waters and steer for the mountains of 
Gracia. His men found a depth of six or seven fathoms, 
and accordingly, weighing anchor, the squadron entered the 
Serpent's Mouth. The transit was made in safety, and once 
in wider waters, the Admiral found the sea as quiet as a 
pond. Looking astern at the angry turmoil through which 
he had come, he fancied that a conflict was perpetually 
raging between the waters within and those without, and 
was greatly puzzled thereby. To increase his wonderment, 
he found the water of the inner body to be sweet, although 
it extended farther than the eye could see to the north and 
west. The problems of the South were even more mysterious 
than he had thought. 

If our readers will look at the map of South America, and 
follow the coast of Trinidad from Point Galeota at its south- 
east extremity, past Point Icacos at its southwest, and through 
the Serpent's Mouth, they will understand the situation of 
Columbus. Off his starboard beam was the island itself. 
Astern, was what he called the Island of Sancta, in reality 
the delta of the Orinoco. Off his port beam stretched the 
inland sea, which the Spaniards call the Gulfo Triste and 
we the Gulf of Paria, so far that the shores of Sancta disap- 
peared in the western distance, confirming his supposition 
as to its insular character. In the north rose the highlands 
toward which he was steering, separated on the east from 
Trinidad and lost in the western distance, — to all appear- 
ances another vast island. Unconscious of the countless 

1 The critics acharnes of Columbus seem to derive some comfort in 
attributing this incident to " very liliely an unusual volume of the river 
water poured out of a sudden." We have ourselves seen an open vessel, 
not much smaller than the Admiral's two caravels, filled and sunken by 
\}n.t pororoca so suddenly that some of her sleeping crew were drowned. 
In this case the boat was riding to a short cable, and her anchor held 
only too well. 



''THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLDS 305 

streams flowing through the Orinoco's mouths to his south 
and west, and supposing that he was sailing through another 
group of gigantic islands like Guadalupe, Dominica, and 
Porto Rico, the Admiral revolved in his mind, as he swept 
across the landlocked gulf, every hypothesis known to him 
from ancient lore or the learning of his day, in search of 
some adequate explanation for the phenomena surrounding 
him. It is no marvel that he failed to find one. He had 
not as yet succeeded in having speech with the natives of 
Trinidad, and so was without even such little help as could 
be gathered from an exchange of unintelligible sentences 
and often misleading gestures. " To avoid scandalizing the 
country," to use his own words, he had made no attempt 
to seize any of the few inhabitants who had been seen as 
he coasted along on the previous days. His bewilderment 
became greater as he found the water increased in freshness 
and sweetness as he proceeded, and although he could 
account for it only by supposing the vicinity of some stream 
or streams, he could not imagine the existence of a river 
great and powerful enough to drive back the ocean itself. 
He had studied the geographical works of his day, had been 
off the delta of the Nile, and had seen the great rivers of 
Africa ; but nothing he had seen or heard of would account 
for the present conditions. The problem was one of infinite 
attractiveness to him, and he chafed at the thought of his 
waiting colony at Hispaniola, and its probable need of 
the half-spoiled cargoes he was taking to it. Small time 
remained for investigating such great matters. 

With a fair breeze the squadron sped swiftly northward, 
and before many hours had attained the northern limits of 
the great gulf. The entrance to the open sea beyond was 
barred by a strait only half the width of the Serpent's 
Mouth, still further narrowed by three small islands. The 
eastern side of this channel was formed by the northwestern 
Cape of Trinidad, which the Admiral named Boto, or Blunt, 
from its shape.^ The western side was a prolongation of 
Gracia Island, and this the Admiral called Cape Lapa.- 

^ Now known as Poiht Monos (monkeys). 
2 The modern Cape Salinas. 
20 



306 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Between these headlands and among the interspersed islands 
boiled and surged the same mad durrents which made the 
Serpent's Mouth so hazardous a portal to force. To dub this 
outlet the Dragon's Mouth was not wholly fanciful. From 
this position, the lofty mountains of the so-called Gracia 
were invitingly near, and beyond them other lofty peaks were 
discernible, which the Admiral assumed to be different 
islands. Before passing out into the sea beyond, he proposed 
to learn something more of the majestic archipelago through 
which he appeared to be sailing, and, accordingly, altering 
his course to the west, began to coast along the southern 
side of Gracia. The country was extremely mountainous, 
but broken by frequent valleys, each contributing a stream 
of crystal water to the waveless gulf. From the numerous 
cultivated clearings which were visible from the ship's deck, 
the Admiral saw with satisfaction that a considerable popu- 
lation existed, and resolved to hold communication with the 
natives before proceeding further. The vessels were brought 
to anchor in one of the excellent harbors with which the 
coast abounded, and on Sunday, the 5 th of August, the boats 
were sent ashore to try and find some of the people. The 
Spaniards came upon an abandoned cabin, and saw other 
indications in plenty, but could find no Indians. They 
reported, on returning, that the forests were filled with 
monkeys, and among the fruits which they brought back, the 
Admiral thought he recognized the mirabolan of the Asiatic 
Indies. These discoveries — for monkeys had not before 
been met with in the western islands — revived his thoughts 
of the Orient, although his men had given him many other 
fruits which he had neither read of in Marco Polo nor met 
with in his other voyages. There were great clusters of 
what seemed to be huge grapes, comely apples of strange 
shape, smooth-skinned oranges with seeds like figs,^ and 
similarly odd but appetizing products of the forests. With 
renewed interest the Admiral weighed anchor and continued 
alongshore towards the west, where the sierras bent farther 
inland and the country was more open. The next day he 

^ The fruits which the Admiral thus describes were apparently the 
assai, cajd, and guava, respectively. 



"THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLD." 307 

reached a river's mouth where he again anchored, and this 
time saw a crowd of Indians quickly gather on the beach. 
Four of them manned a canoe and paddled out to the 
nearest caravel, where they were readily seized by the simple 
stratagem of inviting them to draw so near that their craft 
could be upset. When they were brought before the Ad- 
miral he gave them beads, bells, and sugar, and soon estab- 
lished a basis of good feeling. In answer to his inquiries, or 
rather signs, they replied that their country was called Paria, 
and that towards the west dwelt very many more people. 
As this was the extent of their information, he directed that 
they should be returned on shore with fresh presents. When 
they had reached their companions on the beach and related 
their reception, the whole throng dragged out their canoes 
and paddled fearlessly to the ships, where they were received 
with careful evidences of friendliness. They were all armed 
with bows, arrows, and shields, and the Admiral observed 
that the arrows had been dipped in some mixture, — pre- 
sumably poison. They were much like the men he had 
seen at Trinidad ; taller and stouter than the natives of 
Hispaniola, and of a frank and agreeable bearing. They 
answered freely all his queries, although neither he nor they 
understood one another. In return for the hospitality shown 
them, they brought from shore and offered to the Spaniards 
some of their native bread, together with earthen jars of 
water, and of various wines made from their fruits. By the 
next day a great multitude of Indians had collected on the 
beach, and their canoes plied busily all day between the ves- 
sels and land, crowded with curious and delighted savages. 
To all some trifle was given, but they cared for nothing but 
bells. Of beads, and the other trinkets which the islands of 
the North prized so highly, they made no account. Every- 
thing was subjected to the test of smelling, and they seemed 
to think more highly of brass and its odor than of anything 
else. They were generous in their off"erings of foods and 
beverages, and brought their most brilliantly plumaged birds 
to the strangers. The Admiral found some of these that 
resembled the great parrots of Guadalupe, but what most 
attracted his attention were the colored cloths used by the 



308 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

natives themselves. These were, he says, m texture and 
dye exactly like those worn by the tribes of Guinea and of 
the Sierra Leone Rivers, " without any difference at all," 
and yet, he adds, there cannot be any communication with 
those parts, for they are more than 3200 miles distant from 
where he now is. Tinctured as was his mind with the theory 
of the world's division into zones, he found it difficult to 
conceive how countries in the same latitude could differ so 
radically in people and productions ; hence any pronounced 
similarity immediately suggested some inter-communication. 
As, on his first voyage, he had mentally compared every 
novelty with something described by Marco Polo, so now 
he compared each new experience with his long-ago obser- 
vations on the African coasts. Heretofore, he had dealt 
with regions not unknown to the learned world, new as had 
been his method of reaching them. Cuba was Asia ; Hayti, 
Cipango or Japan, and the Carib archipelago the outlying 
islands of the Orient. But now he was under a new heaven 
and on a new earth, and his experiences were confirming 
his conviction that this quarter of the world had been as 
unknown to the ancients as to those of his own time. Had 
he found the negroes, with their guanin-tipped weapons, of 
whom the Haytians had told him, he would have felt assured 
that i\frica extended around three quarters of the Earth's 
circumference, as he supposed Asia did. 

On the next day he pursued his westward way, taking 
with him six of the natives as guides. Passing near a point 
which he called the Aguja, or Needle, he found the neigh- 
boring country more populous and better cultivated than 
any he had seen on this cruise. The Indians in his com- 
pany indicated by signs that in this district dwelt people 
who were fully clothed, or, at least, so the Admiral inter- 
preted their gestures. Such an intimation was enough to 
arouse all his early enthusiasm, for where the people were 
clad could not, in his belief, be far from the great cities of 
the East. Coming to anchor, the ships were soon sur- 
rounded by a multitude of canoes, but their passengers 
differed nowise as to raiment — or the lack of it — from 
those seen before. In one important respect they did 



''THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLD." 309 

differ; some of them wore golden plates hung from the 
neck. The Indians on board the ships again exercised 
their gesticulatory abilities, and led the Admiral to under- 
stand that gold abounded in that region to such an extent 
that the natives made looking-glasses of it, like those of 
glass which the Spaniards used. The conjunction of such 
plentiful treasure with the reputed race of well-dressed 
humanity, offered to the Admiral an inducement to make a 
protracted investigation which proved well-nigh irresistible. 
What if, after all, Cathay and the gorgeous realms of the 
Great Khan lay in this direction, rather than west of Cuba? 
What if Ceylon, Java, and Sumatra were to be found in this 
southern archipelago, — as he fancied it to be ? It was no 
passing phantasy which seized upon his mind, as he pon- 
dered over this tale of clothes and golden mirrors, for it 
involved the reflections and conclusions of his whole mature 
lifetime. Nor was it a facile decision which he at length 
made, to postpone to another occasion all attempt to probe 
the " secrets " of these lands. He must only view these 
regions hastily, as he passed them, he determined ; for the 
supplies he carried for the colony at Hispaniola had only 
been acquired after long struggle and bitter sacrifice, and 
they must be needed there. It was the same loyal reason- 
ing which had led him to turn his prows northward ten 
days before, when he had failed to come up to his looked- 
for southern continent within the limits he had set. 

From Aguja high lands were visible both in the south 
and in the west, about fifty miles off. As these did not 
appear connected either with one another or with Paria, 
he conceived that they were also islands, and named them 
Isabella and Tramontana, the latter name being one of the 
few traces of his Italian origin which we find in the nomen- 
clature of his voyages.-^ Thinking that the western end 

1 The Spanish of Columbus is very cumbersome, the defect being in 
construction rather than in choice of words. It is worth remarking 
that all his writing is cast in a Portuguese rather than a Castilian 
mould, and that in the only instance where his spoken words have been 
literally preserved, he used a patois much more approximating Portu- 
guese than Spanish, although his hearers were of the latter nation. 
His fourteen years of residence in Portugal and her colonies aftected 



3IO THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

of Paria — or Gracia Island, as it was to him — would 
be reached now before long, he planned to sail to that 
extremity, turn northwards through the strait between it 
and Isabella, and thus make his way into the open sea 
north of Paria and so to Hispaniola. What he fancied to be 
other islands were, of course, the more distant mountains of 
the same mainland along which he was coasting, their bases 
being so hidden beneath the watery horizon that they 
seemed to be entirely distant. But to him they were visibly 
islands, and when, creeping alongshore to a thickly settled 
savannah, whose fertile charms he thought entitled it to the 
name of the Gardens, the Admiral dropped anchor, it was 
to learn from its people something of their western neighbors. 
The Indians not only were decorated with the same orna- 
ments of base gold as those of Aguja, but they wore a 
greater variety, — some in the shape of horseshoes, others 
of beads, others of collars. One of the men had a lump 
of gold the size of an apple slung from his neck, and all of 
them wore their hair bound with brightly colored cloths. 
The women were even more gaily decorated than the men, 
and among their strings of beads the Admiral noticed many 
pearls, of fine quality, not like the few dingy specimens 
which had been found in the shallow waters north of 
Hispaniola. These people were taller, of a more intelligent 
type, and of a fairer complexion than any he had met in the 
Indies ; the Admiral says that " many of them were as 
white as ourselves." Their houses were of two stories, and 
their canoes elaborately built, with covered cabins. In 
every respect they impressed him more favorably than the 
other Indians he had met. After their fashion they seemed 
willing to be frankly communicative. They indicated that 
in the West this kind of base gold was very plentiful, but 
that the countries were infested by the cannibals, who 
devoured men. The dreaded word seemed to have the 
same terrifying effect upon these people as upon the island- 
ers farther north, for they seized the arm of one of the 
Spaniards standing by and mumbled it, in imitation of the 

indelibly his speech. He usually refers to Sierra Leone as " Serra 
Leao," which is pure Portuguese. 



"THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLD P 311 

horrid banquets of the man-eaters. As to the pearls, they 
said, they came from a region on the other, or northern, 
side of Paria and more to the west, where they could be 
gathered in profusion. They entreated the Admiral, as 
soon as they recognized in him the chief of the white men, 
to go ashore with them to visit their King ; but this he 
could not do on account of his gout.-^ He sent some of 
his men ashore in the ship's boats, and they were received 
with much honor by the natives, who escorted them to their 
houses and treated them with such hospitality that the 
sailors returned on board ship loud in the praises of their 
hosts and their method of life. They reported that the 
men occupied one side of the houses and the women the 
other, and that their food and beverages were plentiful 
and palatable. Altogether the experience was a fascinating 
one, and much as he had admired and enjoyed the charms 
of Cuba, Hayti, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the Caribbees, 
the Admiral found these new lands to be the more favored. 
" In the whole world," he writes, " there cannot be more 
fertile, lovely, and populous lands, and the climate is worthy 
of them, for since I have been in this island I am cold every 
morning, so that heavy clothing is needful, and this, although 
it is so near the Equinoctial Line. The sea, also, still con- 
tinues to be fresh." Here was the crux of his problem ; the 
monkeys and odd fruits, the gold and pearls, the traces of 
clothing and superior advancement in the arts, the light 
skins and amiable dispositions might all be accounted for 
out of Marco Polo or the Arabian cosmographers ; but who 
had ever heard of chilly nights near the Equator, or of an 
ocean of sweet water ? 

The torrential rains which deluge the equatorial regions 
of our hemisphere in that season of the year in which 
Columbus was groping his way blindly off the Northern 
Delta of the Orinoco, broke up the agreeable exchange of 
hospitalities between ship and shore which had been initiated 
at the Gardens. Weighing anchor, the squadron stood a 

^ Both Las Casas and the Admiral mention the latter's landing in 
person at one point, at least, on the mainland. This has been some- 
times denied. 



312 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

little farther to the west, until the water began to shoal so 
rapidly that the Admiral feared to venture ahead without 
greater knowledge of the soundings. Both Isabella and 
Tramontana were nearer, and both seemed worthy of a visit, 
especially as the Indian guides insisted that gold was to be 
found in the former and pearls in the latter. Their intima- 
tions as to cannibals had no terrors for any one, least of all 
for the Admiral, who began to believe his guides meant, 
after all, by their gestures only to designate ferocious wild 
beasts and not men. " In these islands which I have seen," 
he wrote, " there must be many productions of value, for 
they are all great and lofty, with many valleys and plains 
and abundant waters. They are well peopled and cultivated, 
with a race of excellent understanding, as their gestures 
show." But the old consideration for the colony in Hispan- 
iola withheld him, and he repeats his fear lest the supplies 
on board his vessels should spoil if he delayed his going. 
To obtain, if possible, a clearer knowledge of the region 
ahead, he ordered his smallest vessel, which bore the appro- 
priate name of the " Correo," or Runner, to continue to the 
west and reconnoitre the supposed islands in that quarter, 
especially with a view to seeing whether the ships of greater 
draft could find a passage around Paria to the open sea in 
the north. While this was being done, he lay at anchor with 
his two other ships, pondering over his strange environment. 
The freshness of the water in the gulf was his chief bewilder- 
ment. "There is no sign from where it comes," he says, 
alluding to the abrupt nature of the coast-lands of Paria, 
" for the country is not such as to give rise to great rivers." 
Next to this was the superior richness of these " islands " as 
compared with those farther north. Apart from the notable 
fertility of the soil and the reputed abundance of gold, his 
attention was engaged by the evident profusion of pearls. 
The Indians parted with them readily and made no secret 
of the place of their origin, and the Admiral knew that the 
Orient produced nothing more highly valued by the mer- 
chants of Europe than its pearls. Could he but find the 
places where they could be had in plenty, the difficulties of 
revenue-raising would be vastly reduced. All about him. 



''THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLDS 313 

in the shallow waters along shore, he noticed great thickets 
of mangroves growing on their stilted roots, with countless 
oysters attached to these and to every branch which drooped 
beneath the surface of the gulf. These oysters, he found 
upon tasting, were white and palatable as to their flesh, 
" although they require a httle salt," he thought. Their 
shells were not of mother-of-pearl ; but he assumed, never- 
theless, that the pearls must come from them, because the 
shells were usually open, and he had read in Pliny that the 
pearls were engendered by dew falling into the open mouths 
of live oysters. Here were such shell-fish in plenty, and 
each night the dew fell with a copiousness new to his experi- 
ence ; ergo, here must be at least one place where the much- 
prized baubles "were born," and could be had in endless 
quantity. The prospect was an alluring one and he dwells 
on it with complacency, for it would go far to disprove the 
assertions of his enemies as to the poverty of resources in 
the Indies. "Wherever it may be that they grow," he 
concludes, " they are of the very finest quality, and the 
natives bore holes in them as is done in Venice." The 
whole Gulf of Paria was thereupon christened the Gulf of 
Pearls, and the Admiral consoled himself for much of his 
past distresses with the reflection that this new source of 
wealth would bring equal delight to his sovereigns. 

The return of the " Correo " changed the current of his 
speculations. Her pilots reported that they had sailed to 
the west until they came upon a broad expanse of land, run- 
ning from Paria clear around to the south and stretching 
out of sight. There was no channel separating Paria from 
other islands, they affirmed, and there were no Isabella and 
Tramontana : it was all one great country enveloping the 
Gulf of Pearls on all sides. At the western extremity of the 
gulf they had found four inlets, through each of which poured 
a river of fresh water. One of these was a very great stream, 
carrying five fathoms of depth as far up as they had sailed. 
The Admiral was disposed to contend with the pilots that 
these " rivers " were in reality only arms of the gulf, separat- 
ing the several islands one from the other ; but they disputed 
his opinion. These were rivers, they insisted, and not mere 



314 ^'^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

channels. There was no strait dividing Paria from her neigh- 
bors, but one continuous territory. It was impossible to find 
a way out of the gulf towards the north, for if the vessels 
proceeded farther westward they would have either to ascend 
some of these rivers, or else run ashore. 

If, on the one hand, the Admiral was disappointed on 
learning that he could not get to Hispaniola by sailing 
around Paria, on the other all his enthusiasm as an explorer 
was aroused by the report of his pilots. Every inclination 
of mind and heart urged him to make the effort " to pene- 
trate the secrets of these lands," to add a new array of mar- 
vels to those he had already exploited. Only that one duty 
to his colony restrained him, — " because the provisions he 
carried for the people in Hispaniola, and those he was tak- 
ing for the use of those who were working in the mines 
gathering gold, would be lost." The memory of the trials 
and humiliations which he had been forced to endure by 
Fonseca and his staff in obtaining these supplies weighed 
upon his spirit throughout this voyage with a persistency 
which indicates the mental strain to which he had been sub- 
jected. 

" If I had any hope," he writes in his journal in 
commenting upon the return of the " Correo," " that I 
should be able to get any more supplies within reasonable 
time, I would defer all else in order to discover more of 
these lands and learn their secrets." It was with no little 
bitterness that he abandoned the idea, for, as he could not 
and did not fail to reflect, had only a little energy and good 
will been shown to him in Spain, he could long since have 
reached these new shores, and had ample time to investigate 
them before making for Hispaniola. In determining now to 
sacrifice his own preferences to the needs of his colonists, he 
registers his firm intention to send Don Bartholomew from 
Hispaniola, without loss of time, to prosecute the exploration 
of this inviting but perplexing country. In recording this 
purpose he takes occasion to call the attention of Ferdinand 
and Isabella to the vastly enhanced prospects of extended 
dominion opened up by this latest voyage, and in so doing 
employs some phrases well worth transcribing. 



"THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLDS 315 

" Here your Majesties have," he writes, " something noble and 
worthy of such puissant Princes. It is a great error to put faith 
in those who speak ill of this enterprise ; rather should they be 
despised, for it shall not be found that any other Prince had 
received so signal a mercy from Our Lord, or has had an equal 
success in an affair of such import, or one of such honor to your 
royal Estate and Kingdoms, wherefrom the Eternal God may 
receive greater service or the people of Spain more delight and 
profit. For it is already evident that there are countless objects 
of value here, and although this that I now say may not be 
appreciated, the time will come when this undertaking shall be 
counted as of surpassing excellence, to the confusion of those 
who have opposed it before your Majesties. And although you 
may have spent somewhat in it, the outlay has been made in an 
affair more noble and of greater dignity than anything under- 
taken by Prince heretofore ; nor should it be now abandoned, 
but you should continue with it and extend to me your help and 
countenance. ... I have never learned, either from written or 
spoken word, that any sovereign of Castile has ever acquired 
any territory outside of Spain ; but your Majesties have secured 
these lands, which are another world, wherein Christendom 
shall so much rejoice and our holy faith, in due time, gain such 
increase. All this I say with the most upright motive possible, 
because I wish your Highnesses to be the principal sovereigns 
in the world, — I should say, the lords of it all, — and that it 
all may so be to the great service and acceptance of the Holy 
Trinity, so that at the end of your days you may enjoy 
the glories of Paradise ; and not for what may affect myself 
herein, for I believe, before God, that your Highnesses shall 
soon see the truth of it all, and know what is in reality my 
ambition." 

It is not to be supposed that the Admiral, when he 
penned these words on the nth of August, fully compre- 
hended the significance of his latest discovery. That only 
occurred to him some days after. But he saw that this was 
no mere group of islands as he had at first thought. Some 
vague idea he had that the vast body of fresh water forming 
the Gulf of Pearls might be the discharge of an underground 
river, coming from a long distance, and he did not altogether 
reject the theory of his pilots that a great body of land was 
to be found in the West, but for the moment he clung to 
the belief that Paria was an island, although a huge one. 



3l6 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Since he could not conclusively determine this, for the 
reasons he gave, he resolved to turn back, pass through the 
Dragon's Mouth to the open sea in the north, and coast 
along that side of Paria to see whether he could there dis- 
cover the strait separating it from adjoining islands. By 
doing this he would be making toward Hispaniola, and, 
without consuming an undue time, might succeed in solving 
the enigma of the great gulf of sweet water. He began to 
doubt whether these southern lands were attached even 
remotely to the Asiatic continent, and to nurse a suspicion 
that they were absolutely new to European knowledge ; so 
his allusion to " another world " than that known to his 
time foreshadowed the conclusion he was soon to reach. 
In letting his imagination picture the sovereigns of Castile 
becoming the principal monarchs of the whole world, he 
was simply multiplying so many degrees of latitude by so 
many of longitude, and arguing that his discoveries already 
embraced a vaster territory than that ruled by any monarch 
in Christendom, — with the promise of infinite extension. 
It has been the fashion to interpret the references made by 
Columbus to a " new world," " another world," and the hke, 
as being figurative, — mere comparisons between the famil- 
iar regions of Europe and the less known countries described 
by Marco Polo, Mandeville, and the other early travellers in 
the East ; but this was not always the case. He made a dis- 
tinction between Cuba, Hayti, and the Caribbees on the 
one hand, and the southern lands on the other. Those were 
known to Polo and the rest, because they were part of 
Asia ; but these were as new to all men as they were to their 
discoverer himself. 

It was night, on Saturday, the nth of August, when the 
Admiral weighed anchor and hoisted sail for his eastward 
run back to Trinidad. The moonlight which flooded the 
quiet gulf afforded all the illumination needful, and the httle 
squadron sped swifdy past the low shores of Paria with 
their background of sombre shadows where the sierras hid 
the northern stars from sight. Only a week had passed since 
he left Trinidad for Paria, and yet in that short time he had 
been confronted by more and deeper mysteries than any 



"THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLD r 317 

which had hitherto been encountered. Even the cruise 
along southern Cuba was plain sailing to this, for there he 
had only to determine whether the land continued on indefi- 
nitely, or not, and he began his exploration with a well- 
settled conviction that it did. Here, however, was a series 
of problems which were taxing his ingenuity to the utmost, 
and for few of which he could find the solution in either 
his own earlier observations or the books of the schoolmen. 
Nothing that he had seen or read of in Africa, Asia, or the 
Indies was applicable to much that he had met with in the 
past ten days, and still there was enough of similitude to 
aggravate immensely his perplexities. His nearness to the 
Equator, and the belief that inhabited lands lay beyond 
it, only added to the confusion of his ideas, because of the 
views held by all of the philosophers as to the character- 
istics of that mysterious zone. His experiences since leaving 
the Cape de Verd islands fitted with none of the theories 
with which he was familiar, and thus, little by little, the 
strange conception which afterwards possessed him began 
to take shape in his mind. Since the teachings of the 
learned availed him nothing, he would be his own guide. 
One must admit that the events of the last six years justified 
him in rejecting the theories of the schools and preferring 
instead the light of his own reason. 

Only a night and a day were spent in the run to Trinidad, 
and on Sunday the squadron came to anchor under Cape 
Lapa at the eastern end of Paria. Here he spent that day 
and the next, and thought of Pliny's "Catholicon" as he 
watched the open-mouthed oysters waiting for the dew, that 
was to turn to pearls, to fall from the mangrove leaves ; and 
noted the neat construction of some native cabins on shore ; 
and examined the fruits a boat's crew brought from the 
neighboring forest ; and speculated on the source of that 
great body of fresh water and all that it implied. On Mon- 
day night he got under way and ran out to the entrance of 
the Dragon's Mouth, where the channel was widest between 
the islands which lay between Paria and Trinidad. Why he 
chose the night for making the passage out to the north is 
not clear. Perhaps he wished to use the ebb-tide ; perhaps 



3l8 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the inflammation of the eyes from which he was suffering 
was the cause, for the moon was near the full and in those 
latitudes its hght is far more brilliant than with us, while 
infinitely less trying than that of the vertical sun. He found 
the same angry turmoil of waters rushing through the strait 
that he had before observed, and attributed it to the resist- 
ance of the salt sea beyond to the exit of the fresh waters 
of the gulf. The wind fell as the vessels embarked in the 
turbulent current, and once more all hands gave themselves 
up for lost, as they heard the roar of a great wave approach- 
ing and saw the dark wall bearing down upon their becalmed 
hulls. In the vain effort to ride out the danger they let go 
their anchors ; but the depth was too great, and they were 
borne like chips on the crest of the combing bore. Rush- 
ing through the moonlit channels, lurching and pitching 
amid the dark hollows and glittering foam patches, the ves- 
sels at length were cast in safety out into the gentler rollers 
of the open sea which we call the Caribbean. 

As soon as he had examined his surroundings by daylight 
the Admiral steered to the west, intending to follow in that 
direction the northern, or outer coast of Paria at least as far 
as he had its southern, or inner shore, — a distance, he esti- 
mated, of nearly 200 miles. To the north he saw a number 
of lesser islands which he named Assumption, Conception, 
the Pilgrim, and the Witnesses.^ These offered no induce- 
ment to vary from his course, for his one motive was to 
settle the geographical nature of Paria. The depth and 
violence of the current sweeping through the Dragon's 
Mouth had already suggested to him the idea that Paria 
" at some period must have been continuous land with the 
island of Trinidad," and this increased the interest of tie 
problem. The quiet hours of Saturday and Sunday had 
served to clarify his impressions. He would make a final 
effort to ascertain the source of all that fresh water, whether 
in fact it came from rivers as his pilots affirmed. This he 
was not even now prepared to admit, he says, " because 
I have never heard that either the Ganges, or the Euphrates, 

1 The Testigos and their neighboring cays, on modern charts. 



''THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLD." 319 

or the Nile brought down so much fresh water." The whole 
contour of the country, as he had seen it, was against any 
such assumption, " for there are no lands so extensive that 
such huge rivers could have birth in them, unless" — and 
the qualification was the outcome of his forty-eight hours of 
cogitation, — " this is Terra Firma." If, therefore, after ex- 
ploring the coast for a sufficient distance, he found no strait 
running to the south, he would know that Paria was not an 
island, and " would then affirm that the fresh water was a 
river ; but whether it is or not," he adds, " it is a great mar- 
vel." He scrutinized anxiously every opening in the shore 
line as he crept along westward. Monday night he stood off 
shore, for safety, and as he was compelled by the excessive 
inflammation of the eyes, caused by protracted loss of sleep, 
to abandon the watch, his navigator allowed the squadron 
to reach too far out to sea, so that when morning came they 
were close to a large island, which the Admiral named Mar- 
garita, — the Pearl. Returning to the coast of Paria on 
Tuesday morning, he continued his examination throughout 
the day, until he estimated that he was at a distance of 150 or 
160 miles to the west of Cape Lapa. As far as the eye could 
reach the coast stretched away, preserving the same general 
features. The pain from his blood-congested eyes was so 
great, and his exhaustion from prolonged vigils so complete, 
that he did not feel disposed to continue the search for a 
strait in whose existence he no longer had faith. Paria, he 
now saw, although beginning in a narrow point, ran indefi- 
nitely to the west and south, widening as it went, as was the 
case with Cuba. Its northern coast, which fronted towards 
Hayti and the Caribs' islands, was washed by the same sea 
as they. Within its borders, somewhere, were cannibals ; 
he himself had secured by barter a goodly quantity of 
guanin. The only satisfactory explanation of the great gulf 
of fresh water was that it was the discharge of some huge 
river, and his pilots had seen several streams of no ordinary 
size. To account for a fresh inland sea 200 miles long 
by at least 100 wide, a mainland must be supposed which 
equalled in extent those continents which gave rise to the 
Ganges, the Nile, or the Euphrates ; but there was nothing 



320 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

in this opposed to the sound deductions of philosophy, for 
many of the masters held that six-sevenths of the world's 
surface was solid land ; and Asia, Africa, and Europe com- 
bined still left a vast superficies to be accounted for. All 
these considerations united to produce absolute conviction 
in his mind, despite his former tendency to doubt. What 
he had supposed, a fortnight before, to be a new group of 
great islands, — Trinidad, Gracia, Isabella, Tramontana, — 
was that very southern Terra Firma which he had set out 
to discover. Trinidad, in the remote past, had been broken 
off from the continental mass ; but the rest, called by the 
natives Paria, was there before his wearied eyes, inviting to 
an exploration of its hidden " secrets." His work was, for 
the moment, done, and he would steer now for Hispaniola 
to attend to the needs of his government while Don Bar- 
tholomew came south to pursue the investigation of the new 
continent. For this was a new mainland, separate and dis- 
tinct from that of Cuba, — " the other Terra Firma which 
he had discovered." 

" I am convinced," he wrote in his journal, addressing Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella, '' that this is Terra Firma, of vast extent, of 
which until this day nothing has been known. Reason brings 
me great support in this conclusion by cause of this great river 
and its sea, which is fresh. Next I am supported by the decla- 
ration of Esdras who says in his Book IV, Chapter 6, that six 
parts of the world are dry land and one is of water. This book 
is approved by St. Ambrosio in his '• Examenon,' and by St. 
Augustine at the passage Morietiir filius 7neus Christus as Fran- 
cisco de Mayrones asserts. Besides this I am assured by the 
statements of many cannibal Indians, when I have taken them 
on other occasions, all of whom declared that to the south of 
them was Terra Firma. At the time I was in Guadalupe ; but 
I also heard the same from others in the Island of Santa Cruz 
and in San Juan [Porto Rico], and they said there was much 
gold here. As your Majesties know, it is only a very little while 
since no other land was known except what Ptolemy described, 
and there was no one in my day who believed that one could 
navigate from Spain to the Indies. Concerning this I spent 
seven years in your Court, and they were not few who consulted 
me about it, but at length only the lofty spirit of your Majesties 
caused the trial to be made, in spite of the opposition of all those 



''THESE LANDS ARE ANOTHER WORLD:' 32 1 

who impugned it. Now the truth appears, and will appear yet 
more amply before much time ; for if this is Terra Firma it is 
matter for great wonderment, and that it is such will be con- 
sidered among all learned men, since from it issues a river so 
immense that it fills a fresh sea 200 miles long." ^ 

1 And yet even the always impartial and sincere Fiske maintains 
that "when Columbus died, the fact that a New World had been dis- 
covered by him had not yet begun to dawn upon his mind, or upon the 
mind of any voyager or any writer." 





XVI. 



FROM PARADISE TO INFERNO. 



WHEN Columbus turned to the west, after emerging 
from the Dragon's Mouth, he was so broken down 
in health from his prolonged lack of sleep and the uninter- 
mitted strain upon his faculties of the month which had passed 
since he left the Cape de Verd Islands, that he had to direct 
the movements of his squadron from a couch on deck. In 
especial, his eyes caused him acute suffering ; they were suf- 
fused with blood to such an extent that they seemed ready 
to burst. In his whole life, he says, not even on the Cuban 
voyage when his thirty-three nights of watchfulness nearly 
cost him his sight, had he been so tormented. When, there- 
fore, on the 15th of August, his pilots reported the continua- 
tion of land toward the west, and he reached the conclusion 
that this was, indeed. Terra Firma, he equally realized that 
its further prolongation must be confided to other hands. He 
had reached the utmost limits of his physical powers, and, 
in simple truth, could do no more. He had attained a point 
on the coast of the modern Venezuela south of the Island of 
Margarita, about where the peninsula of Araya encloses the 
Bay of Cariaco, or Cumana. Here the vessels anchored on 
the night of the 15th, and on the morning of the i6th he 
hoisted anchor and left the coast steering northwest, in 
demand of Hispaniola. As he sailed over the smooth waters 
of the Caribbean Sea, his mind dwelt insistently upon the 
problems of the voyage now closing. By the help of some 
associate, or by a supreme effort on his own part, he man- 
aged to continue the entries in his journal, although he 
322 



FROM PARADISE TO INFERNO. 323 

laments their enforced brevity. He recites, as if to excul- 
pate himself with their Majesties for any apparent lack of 
zeal in prosecuting his discoveries, the causes which induced 
him to abandon further exploration, dwelling again on the 
necessity of getting his supphes to the colony at Hispaniola 
before they were spoiled, and adding that his people were 
worn out with the voyage, and he did not dare to keep them at 
sea any longer. They were not shipped in Spain for a voyage 
of exploration, he says, " lest they should have made some 
objection, and so that they would not ask for more money, 
which I did not have. " He was dissatisfied with the draught 
of his ships as being too great. His preference was always 
for vessels of light draught, and the recent experiences in the 
Gulf of Pearls had demonstrated again their superior conven- 
ience. But his chief reason for not continuing onwards, even 
for a few days, was the fear that his sight was about to leave 
him. " May it please Our Lord to free me of them," he 
writes of the tormenting organs, " for He well knows that I 
do not support these trials to accumulate riches or to find 
wealth for myself. Surely I know that everything done in 
this life is vain, except what is done for the honor and service 
of God, and that is not to accumulate treasure or dignities, 
or many other of the things we enjoy in this world and to 
which we are more given than to those which can save us." ^ 
The disastrous termination of the Cuban cruise was before 
him as a warning of what might result from overtaxing his 
powers, and he might well dread its repetition. 

As was always the case in his seasons of extreme physical 
and mental depression, the Admiral's reflections now began 

^ The evidence of Las Casas is so universally, and correctly, quoted 
against Columbus in the matter of enslaving the Indians, that it may 
be well to record here the same authority's conception of the Admiral's 
motives in general. " Verily this man was possessed of an honest and 
Christian purpose," writes the good Bishop, in reference to the clause 
above translated, " and was abundantly content with the condition of 
life to which he had so meritoriously attained, wishing to support 
himself therein with a modest competency and to rest from so many 
labors. But what he strove and toiled for resulted only in placing their 
Majesties under a greater debt, although I do not know what greater 
one was needful than that he had already placed them under." 



324 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

to be tinged with that strange brooding mysticism which 
is so foreign to the Latin temperament. Pondering over 
the events of the voyage, especially wherein they differed 
from the experiences of his previous passages across the 
Ocean Sea, his mind reviewed all the cosmical theories, 
sacred and profane, which he had read in the course of his 
long years of study. None of them accounted for the enig- 
matical wonders which his own eyes had witnessed. He 
enumerates the most salient of these before recording the 
singular conclusion at which he arrived, and in following 
them it is needful to bear in mind that, virtually, all that 
was known of the Earth outside of the geography of Pliny, 
Strabo, Ptolemy, and the other philosophers he cites, he had 
himself discovered. When to his own personal observations 
and the adventures of Marco Polo were added the teach- 
ings of the geographer who died when Pompeii was buried, 
Columbus, to all intents and purposes, commanded the 
Science of his day as he looked out over the sapphire waters 
of the Caribbean, and mused over the most consistent ex- 
planation of his latest observations. In the order of his 
reflections, these are the considerations which brought con- 
viction to his mind: (ist) Contrary to the arguments of 
the ancients, and to his own experiences in Africa, he had 
found the equatorial zone in this western world not only 
habitable, but possessing a climate which was far cooler 
than that of Cuba and Hayti, farther away from the Line. 
(2nd) This atmospheric freshness was first noticed about the 
same meridian, — 400 miles west of the Azores, — where the 
needles of his compass first showed a tendency to fluctuate 
in pointing to the Pole, and the farther west one came the 
fresher was the climate. (3rd) The needle fluctuated more 
the farther north he was, and on this southern cruise its 
motion was imperceptible until he left Terra Firma. On 
the night of the 15 th of August, it suddenly began to vary 
wildly from the true north, to the great astonishment of all 
on board. (4th) The stars were differently placed, and 
particularly the Polar star and its ''guards," — Ursa Major. 
(5th) He found no banks of sea-weed in the South, and even 
when the winds blew there was little sea raised. (6th) The 



FROM PARADISE TO INFERNO. 325 

farther south he came, in the western world, the paler and 
more intelligent he found the people. This was contrary 
to all precedent and expectation, for in the Azores the 
natives were dark; and in the Cape de Verd Islands, 
farther south, still darker ; and in Sierra Leone, yet nearer 
the Equator, absolutely black, with curly hair, and ignorant ; 
whereas, in this new land, although equally far to the south, 
they were lighter than any others he had seen, had straight 
hair, were more courageous, and showed more natural 
capacity. (7th) There was that great body of fresh water, 
only to be accounted for by supposing the existence of great 
rivers, and seemingly without any adequate outlet. (8th) 
Finally, the ocean currents were swifter than any before 
encountered, and appeared to tend uniformly to the west, 
that is, away from the great basin of fresh water. 

Nothing in the pagan philosophies would account for all 
these discrepancies ; but the Scriptures, as interpreted by 
the Fathers of the Church, would. Paria was the extreme 
western extension of the Orient, — more so than Cuba, 
which he had already named " End of the Orient," as we 
have seen. In the remotest East the theological scientists 
had, although vaguely, placed the Earthly Paradise, and in 
that Paradise was a great mountain. Now, to the Admiral, 
it seemed clear that Paria must be the beginning of that 
thrice-blessed region ; that somewhere in its interior must 
be that great mountain ; that from its summit must flow the 
huge streams of living water which made the inland sea of 
Pearls ; that either by mouths he had not seen, or by vast 
passages tunnelling beneath earth and ocean, those waters 
found their distant way, west or east, to become the four 
Biblical rivers, — Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Ganges ; that the 
whole surface of the world in the quarter where Paria was 
situated swelled gradually toward Heaven, beginning at the 
point about 400 miles west of the Azores ; and that as one 
sailed west and south, so did one imperceptibly rise higher 
and higher. In short, the world, instead of being round 
like a ball, was round as a pear is round, — with a pro- 
tuberance on one side. This would account for everything 
he had observed, the Admiral was disposed to beheve ; for 



326 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the farther he sailed on that course, the higher he would get 
above the level of the rest of the Earth ; the cooler it would 
be ; the more amiable, capable, and physically attractive the 
inhabitants, and the more fertile and richer their countries. 
The farther he ascended, the fresher must be the seas, 
while the force of the downward flow would create just such 
currents as he had met. And his loftier elevation would 
both give to the heavens their changed appearance and 
cause the needle, in seeking the Pole, to vary from the 
position it assumed on the lower levels of Ocean. 

"Rampant hallucinations," "wild imaginings," and "va- 
garies " are some of the phrases used to describe these 
conclusions of Columbus. The charge is as old as ignorance 
and as stale as bigotry. Even in our own day Gordon of 
Khartoum wove a dreamer's web about the stones of 
Solomon's Temple ; but the world was none the less the 
richer by the labors of his life and the lesson of his death, 
because an officer of the Engineers could not interpret 
Daniel and the Apocalypse. Columbus, likewise, let his 
imagination drift to the Temple and the Prophets ; but our 
debt is not diminished thereby. If the nineteenth-century 
soldier discarded modern science in his speculations, there 
is the more excuse for the fifteenth-century sailor disregard- 
ing the contents of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Of his 
facts he was sure, because he was their discoverer ; in draw- 
ing from them what strike us as absurd inferences, he was 
doing no more than thousands have done since and we are all 
doing to-day, — interpreting facts in the manner most accept- 
able to the observer's mental attitude. Columbus was not 
weaned from a pernicious belief in the Scriptures. He 
considered the Fathers to be their best interpreters. When 
he found a theory sanctioned by the Church, which seemed 
to account for his fact, the influence was greater than he 
could resist ; it must be the truth. At the same time, he 
did not lend himself unreservedly to this opinion. It was a 
revery, a proposition, rather than a finally accepted dogma. 
As he sailed away from the shores of Paria and found no 
more islands succeeding Margarita, but only the open sea, 
he was satisfied that Paria was indeed no island. " Either 



FROM PARADISE TO INFERNO. 327 

it is a great continent," he writes on August 17th, " or else 
the place where the Earthly Paradise is." Within a year he 
learned that it was a continent, and we hear httle more of 
his Caribbean day-dream. At the same time, as in nothing 
is he more vociferously ridiculed than in this, it is worth 
while transcribing his own presentation of his idea to 
Ferdinand and Isabella. 

" I have always read," he wrote a few weeks later, " that the 
world — land and water — was spherical, and the authorities 
and facts which Ptolemy and all others have written about this 
earth affirm and testify to the theory, as well by the eclipses of 
the moon and the other evidences adduced from east to west, as 
by the elevation of the Polar Star from the north toward the 
south. Now I have seen a great discrepancy, as I have already 
said ; and for this reason I have been led to think this of the 
Earth, that it is not round in the manner they describe, but is in 
the shape of a pear, which is indeed entirely round, except where 
the stem is, and there it is higher ; or like a ball which one may 
have, which on one side has something like a nipple projecting 
from it ; and I have thought that this part, or nipple, may be 
the highest and nearest the sky, and may be situated below the 
Equinoctial Line, in this Ocean Sea, at the extremity of the 
Orient. For I call that the extremity of the Orient where all 
the land and the islands end.^ In support of this I advance 
all the reasons above alleged concerning the line which passes 
from north to south 100 leagues to the west of the Azores,^ 
where, in sailing still more westwardly, the ships already begin 
to rise gradually toward the sky. It is then that the mildest 
temperature is enjoyed, because of the softness of the prevailing 
wind, and the compass needle begins to shift. The farther one 
advances the higher one rises, and the more the needle tends to 
northwest. This elevation causes that irregularity in the circle 
which the Pole Star makes with its pointers, and the nearer one 
comes to the Equinoctial Line the higher the pointers will rise 
and the greater will be the changes in position of those stars 
and the circles they describe. 

" Ptolemy and the other philosophers who have written about 
the Earth believed that it was spherical, holding that this west- 

^ I.e. as one goes from the west toward the east. Compare the 
reasons given by Columbus on his first voyage for calling Cape Maysi, 
at the eastern end of Cuba, " Cape Alpha and Omega." 

2 The line of no-variation. See p. 324, supra. 



328 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ern hemisphere was as round as that one where they were, the 
centre of which is in the Island of Arin, under the Equator 
between the Arabian Gulf and the Persian, and that the dividing 
meridian passes through Cape St. Vincent in Portugal in the 
West and through Cangara and the Seres Islands ^ in the East. 
As to that hemisphere, I find no difficulty in supposing it to be 
other than a round sphere, as they say ; but this other hemi- 
sphere out here I say is like the half of a very round pear which 
has a projecting stem, as I said above, or like a nipple on the 
side of a ball. Consequently Ptolemy and the others who wrote 
of the Earth had no information about this half, for it was 
utterly unknown ; they based their theory upon the hemisphere 
where they dwelt, which was a round sphere, as before said. 

" Now that your Majesties have ordered this one to be sailed 
over, explored and examined, all this becomes perfectly evident. 
For when I was in 20° of north latitude, on this voyage, I was 
directly off Hargin and those countries.^ There the people are 
black and the land is scorched by the sun. Afterwards I went 
to the Cape de Verd Islands. In those regions the people are 
very much blacker ; and the farther one goes to the south the 
more pronounced do they become, until, on reaching the latitude 
where I then was, — which is that of Sierra Leone, — where 
the Pole Star was only 5° above the horizon at nightfall, the 
people are excessively black. After I had sailed thence into the 
West I found those extreme heats, but once the line of which I 
have spoken was passed I found the mildness of the temperature 
increase with such rapidity that on reaching the Island of Trini- 
dad, where the Pole Star likewise was 5° above the horizon at 
nightfall, both there and in the region of Gracia I found the 
temperature to be of the softest, and the earth and trees of the 
greenest, as beautiful as in the gardens of Valencia in April. 
The people of these countries are of very handsome figure, and 
whiter than any I have seen in the Indies, with long, smooth 
hair, and they are the brightest and most intelligent of the 
people I have seen, and are not cowards. At that time the sun 
was in Virgo, directly above our heads and theirs, so that all this 
difference is caused by the extreme mildness of temperature there 
prevailing, which is due to the fact that there one is higher up 
in the world and nearer to the sky. 

"Thus it is that I affirm that the Earth is not a sphere ; but it 
has this variation I have mentioned, which is in this hemisphere 
where the Ocean Sea and the Indies are found, the extremity 

^ The Seres were the people of Northwest China, according to Pliny. 
2 Arguin, near Cape Blanco, on the east coast of Africa. 



FROM PARADISE TO INFERNO. 329 

of which is below the Equinoctial Line. That this is correct 
is strongly confirmed by the fact that the sun, when Our Lord 
created it, was at the first point of the East, or the first light 
began here in the Orient, where the highest part of the world 
is. Although Aristotle held that the highest part of the world, 
and that which is nearest the sky, is the Antarctic Pole, or the 
land lying beneath it, other philosophers dispute this opinion, 
saying that the highest land is beneath the North Pole ; whereby 
it appears that they believed one portion of the Earth must be 
loftier and more sublimated than the other. It is no wonder 
that they did not conceive that such part should be underneath 
the Equator in the manner I have set forth, for they had no 
certain knowledge of this hemisphere, but only a passing sugges- 
tion by way of hypothesis, since no one has ever visited it or 
sought to find it until the present moment when your Majesties 
have sent to explore the sea and land. 

" I find that the distance between these two Mouths,^ which 
are opposite one another, as I have said, from north to south, is 
26 leagues, — and there could be no mistake in this, because the 
measurement was made with the quadrant. From these two 
Mouths toward the west, to the gulf which I called of Pearls, 
there are 68 leagues, of 4 miles each, as we are used to calcu- 
late at sea, and from there the water of this gulf rushes perpetu- 
ally with great force towards the east, for which reason these 
Mouths have sucli a conflict with the salt water. In this south- 
ern Mouth, which I called the Serpent's, I found the Pole Star to 
be about 5° high at nightfall ; while in the northern one, which I 
named the Dragon's, it was almost 7° high. I find also that the 
said Gulf of Pearls is west of the Western Meridian of Ptolemy 
almost 3900 miles, which are nearly 70 equatorial degrees, count- 
ing 561 miles to each degree. Now, the Holy Scriptures testify 
that Our Lord made the Earthly Paradise and placed therein the 
Tree of Life, and that thence flowed a stream from which ema- 
nate four chief rivers of the world, to wit : the Ganges in India, 
the Tigris and Euphrates, — which cleave the mountain range 
and form Mesopotamia, falling afterward into the Persian Gulf, 
— and the Nile, which enters the sea at Alexandria. I do not 
find and never have found a writing either of Romans or of 
Greeks which definitely declares where is the site of the Earthly 
Paradise in this world : nor have I seen it placed on any map, 
save by way of hypothesis. Some place it over yonder where 
are the sources of the Nile, in Ethiopia ; but others have jour- 

^ The Dragon's and the Serpent's. 



330 



THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 



neyed through all those countries and have not found such 
agreement in the temperance of the climate, or the elevation 
towards the sky, as could lead to the belief that it was there, 
or that the waters of the Flood had reached there — for they 
overwhelmed it, and so on. Certain of the pagans wished to 
establish by arguments that it was in the Fortunate Islands, 
which are the Canaries, and so on. St. Isidore, Bede and 
Strabo, the Master of the ' Scholastic History,' St Ambrose 
and Scotus, as well as all the sound theologians ^ agree that the 
Earthly Paradise is in the East, and so on. 

" I have set forth what I believed about this hemisphere and 
its shape, and I believe that, if I were to pass below the Equi- 
noctial Line, on arriving where the earth is highest I would find 
a much greater mildness of climate and a difterence in the stars 
and the waters ; not because I believe that in the very highest 
part it would be transitable, or there would be water, or that I 
could attain thereto, — for I think it is there that the Earthly 
Paradise is situated, and that none may enter it except by Divine 
permission. And I also believe that this country which your 
Majesties have just sent me to discover is very great in size, and 
that there are many others in the South of which nothing has 
ever been known. 

" I do not consider that this Earthly Paradise is shaped like 
a rugged mountain, as it is depicted to us in the descriptions of 
it, but that it is on the summit of what I called the stem of the 
pear, and that little by little, as one advances thither, one 
ascends towards it from afar off. I believe that no one can 
reach the summit, as I have said ; and I believe that this fresh 
water may come from there, although it is very distant, flowing 
into the place from which I have just come and forming this 
lake. Strong evidence is this that these lands are the Earthly 
Paradise, because this site conforms with the opinion of the 
holy and orthodox theologians I have cited, and also because the 
indications likewise conform ; for I have never read nor heard of 
so vast a body of fresh water being thus within and adjacent 
to the salt water. The extreme mildness of the climate also 
confirms this theory. But even if this stream does not issue 
from the Paradise, it appears to be even a greater marvel, for I 
do not believe that in the whole world so great and so deep a 
river is known. 

" After I left the Dragon's Mouth, which is the northern one 

1 It is dear that Columbus had his own views as to what was 
orthodox as well as some later members of Mother Church. 



FROM PARADISE TO INFERNO. 



331 



of the two outlets and was thus named by me, on the following 
day, which was that of Our Lady of August [Assumption Day], 
I found that the current set so strongly to the west that after the 
hour for Mass, when I entered on that course, until the hour of 
Vespers, I made 75 leagues of four miles each, the wind not 
being very strong, but rather light. This further strengthens 
the theory that one ascends in going southward, while in going 
northward, as at that time, one is descending. 

'' I hold it to be well established that the waters of the ocean 
take their course from east to west, with the heavens, and that 
when they pass the vicinity of which I speak they gain addi- 
tional velocity. It is for this reason that they have eaten away 
so much of the land, whereby so many islands are found here- 
abouts ; and they themselves bear witness to this, for they are, 
without exception, long from east to west and from northeast, to 
southwest, — which is a little more above or below the same 
direction, — and are narrow from north to south, and from 
northwest to southeast, which is the direction opposite to those 
just mentioned. In all these islands precious commodities have 
their origin, by reason of the favorable temperature which they 
derive from the sky, because they are near the loftiest portion 
of the Earth. It is true that, in some places, the currents do not 
appear to follow this course, but this is only in certain particular 
localities where some land obstructs them and makes them 
appear to pursue other ways. 

" Pliny writes that the earth and sea together make a com- 
plete sphere, and maintains that this Ocean Sea is the largest 
body of water existing and that it extends toward the sky, being 
upheld by the land beneath it ; the one being mingled with the 
other as the kernel of a nut is enclosed in the thick shell sur- 
rounding it. The Master of Scholastic History, in discoursing 
concerning Genesis, affirms that the waters are but little in 
quantity ; that, although when they were created they covered 
all the earth, they were vaporous like clouds, and when they 
afterwards were brought together and solidified they occupied 
but a very little space. In this view Nicholas de Lira agrees. 
Aristotle declares that the world is small and the water of but 
little extent, and that one may easily pass from Spain to the 
Indies. This is concurred in by Avenruyz ; and Cardinal Pet- 
rus Aliacus says the same, supporting this theory and that of 
Seneca (who is of the like opinion), and maintaining that Aris- 
totle was in a position to know many of the Earth's secrets 
through Alexander the Great, and that Seneca was equally well 
situated through Nero, and Pliny through the Romans, all of 



332 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

whom spent men and treasures and exerted great diligence in 
fathoming such problems and publishing them among mankind. 
This same Cardinal allows great authority to these philosophers, 
more so than to Ptolemy or other Greeks, or to the Arabs. In 
support of the contention that the quantity of water is small 
and that part of the world covered by it of limited extent, as is 
held by Ptolemy and those who follow him, the Cardinal quotes 
an opinion from Esdras in his 3rd Book, where he says that 
six parts of the seven, into which the world is divided, are not 
covered by water ; which opinion is sustained by the Fathers, 
who approve the 3rd and 4th Books of Esdras, and which is 
also affirmed by Francisco de Mayrones. As to this question 
of the extent of dry land, much experience has shown that it is 
far greater than is commonly thought ; nor is this to be wondered 
at, for the farther one travels the more one learns. 

" Reverting to my problem of the land of Gracia and the 
river and lake I found there, the latter is so great that it might 
rather be termed sea than lake ; for '■ lake ' is a piece of water, 
and when this is great, one calls it 'sea,' — as we say the Sea of 
Galilee and the Dead Sea. 

" But I maintain that, if this river does not issue from the 
Earthly Paradise, it does come and proceed from a land of infinite 
extent, situated in the South, of which to the present time no 
knowledge has been had. Yet I am very firmly convinced in 
my mind that the Earthly Paradise is yonder where I have said, 
and I rest upon the reasons and authorities above quoted."' 

Alexander von Humboldt has said truly, that " the char- 
acter of the world's great men is composed both of their 
own intense personality, by which they are raised above the 
level of their contemporaries, and of the general disposition 
of their time, which they illustrate and upon which they 
react." ^ If we are content to divest ourselves of our latter- 
day knowledge and place ourselves, as far as may be, in the 
closing years of the fifteenth century, we shall see in this 
letter of Columbus a striking portrayal of the intellectual 
conditions of his day. It is not possible more graphically 
to depict the struggle which was waging in every intelligent 

1 Examen Critique, Vol. III. p. 13. Unfinished as it stands, this 
noble work is in itself a monument sufficient even for the merits of its 
illustrious author. It is a great loss to the students of the historical 
geography of our hemisphere that it has never been translated into 
English. 



FROM PARADISE TO INFERNO. 333 

mind between the authoritative teachings of the schools and 
the Church concerning the world we live in, and the irre- 
sistible suggestions of Reason. To his Church Columbus 
felt was due the tribute of accepting her dogmas, in so far 
as they were obligatory ; hence he believed that if there 
were, indeed, an Earthly Paradise he had discovered it, 
and he honestly marshalled every tittle of evidence which he 
could summon from the volume of his experience to lend 
color to the speculations of such " sound theologians " as 
Saints Augustine and Ambrose. But fealty did not degen- 
erate into fanaticism. With the extreme candor which 
marks all of his reflections, he sets the contras against the 
pros and points out why, if there is no Earthly Paradise, 
the region he had just left must necessarily be a vast con- 
tinent, drained by rivers of a size theretofore undreamed of, 
and extending far below the Equator. We shall have taxed 
our readers' indulgence in vain if we have failed to bring 
before them, in the long extract above quoted, the trend 
of the Admiral's thoughts as he sailed away from the con- 
tinent he had added to the map of the world. It is a cheap 
and facile sneer to intimate that his one object, in intro- 
ducing into his report this argument about Paradise, was 
to "restore the enthusiasm which his earlier discoveries 
aroused in the dull spirits of Europe " by " a glimpse of the 
ecstatic pleasures of Eden." There is Httle testimony to 
warrant us in taking Columbus for a fool ; still less for sup- 
posing that he held a like opinion of his King and Queen. 
Yet on what other hypothesis can we assume he acted, if, 
in sending this long story to Ferdinand and Isabella, he was 
merely concocting an intricate and gratuitous imposition? 
Why should he be always branded as the knave when he 
shows a less knowledge of geography than we possess, while 
the similar errors of Cabot and Vespucci and Da Gama and 
Magellan are deemed trivial — as they should be ? With 
the words of Columbus, which we have 'copied, before him 
the leading exponent of this view of the discoverer's life 
does not hesitate to affirm that " he had no conception of 
the physical truth," and he lauds the " clearer instincts " of 
Vespucci. But what was left for Vespucci and the Admiral's 



334 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

other disciples to do? The Admiral himself proposed to 
send back Don Bartholomew immediately, to continue the 
exploration of the new continent. He prepared a map of 
Paria and Trinidad by which any mariner could reach them ; 
he logged the changes in the stars, the variation of the 
needle, the set of the ocean currents, the height of the tides, 
the prevalence of the winds. He explicitly rehearsed his 
reasons for believing the continent to be a great one and 
to extend far to the south and west, and recorded the evi- 
dences of population, cultivation, and savage wealth. " I 
saw the map of what he had discovered, which the Admiral 
at that time sent to Spain for the King and Queen, our sov- 
ereigns," testified in later years Hojeda, Vespucci's com- 
mander, " and I started at once on a voyage of discovery." 
What difference did it make whether Columbus thought that 
the Earthly Paradise might be situated in this new continent, 
or whether he discovered, as one of his pilots mistakenly testi- 
fied eleven years later, " the Terra Firma which men called 
Asia " ? The gift of omniscience was as rare in his day as 
was that of Historical Criticism. All he knew was that he 
had found a new and vast body of land under the western 
Equator. It seemed plausible to him that it might be the 
Paradise of the orthodox geographers. If it was not, it was 
all the more surprising, for then it was utterly new. Just 
what it was, he intended that his brother should investigate 
and determine. Circumstances prevented this. Instead, 
certain adventurous spirits, who got hold of his maps and 
reports as soon as they reached Spain, rigged out a number 
of ships and crossed the Atlantic to follow up his indications. 
They found that there was no lofty Paradise, but that he 
was right in his other inferences ; that the continent did 
run south and west for great distances, and that its chief 
productions were cannibals, brazil-wood, and parrots. To 
that extent they learned more than Columbus, and had a 
better "conception of the physical truth." We know a 
great deal more than even they about the same continent, 
for we can recite the names of its turbulent republics, their 
capital cities, great rivers and mountains, and the lines of 
railroad running inland from their seaports. Yet neither 



FROM PARADISE TO INFERNO. 335 

they nor we found the American mainland. Its discovery 
was the direct fruit of " the wild imaginings of Columbus," 
coupled with a certain quality which he possessed in un- 
measured abundance, and which in other men we honor as 
Pluck.i 

Whether Paradise or unknown mainland, the Admiral 
fully appreciated the value to the Spanish Crown of his 
latest discovery. In his journal he exhorts his sovereigns 
to hold these new lands at their true worth, and recites the 
many evidences which he had secured of their productiveness 
and wealth. In doing so, he mentions certain pink pearls 
which he had obtained, " which Marco Polo declares to be 
worth more than the white ones," thus furnishing us, contrary 
to the generally asserted error, with explicit proof that he 
had read the travels of the garrulous Venetian. Crippled 
as he was in sight, he also followed minutely the movements 
of the stars and the fluctuations of the magnetic needle ; 
and he records the fact, that in this southern voyage the 
latter did not show an easterly variation until the night of 
August 15 th. 

When Columbus bore away from the coast of Paria, he 
steered for that part of the southern shores of Hispaniola 
where he had ordered the new city of San Domingo to be 
founded. Three days were occupied in making the passage ; 
but when, on the evening of August 19th, he neared His- 
paniola, he was surprised to find that the currents had 
carried his vessel so far to the east that he was off the 
Island of Beata, 200 miles from his desired haven. On 
the next morning he sent a crew ashore on the main 
island to have speech with the Indians, and was not a little 
disturbed when he saw a cross-bow in the hands of one of 
the natives who came aboard in answer to his summons. 
His anxiety was of brief duration, however, for shortly after- 

^ On the same page in which Dr. Winsor so unsparingly lashes the 
crudeness of Columbus's concepts of cosmography, he reproduces a 
map of the navigator's day, in which " Paradise " is given a prominence 
in the East equal to that of Sumatra and the Persian Gulf. Some of 
us moderns do not feel ourselves to be such very Boeotians because we 
once supposed that the Nile had its source in the Mountains of the 
Moon. 



336 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL, 

wards a caravel appeared, coming from the direction of 
San Domingo, wliich proved to be the bearer of Don 
Bartholomew. The Admiral's squadron had been sighted 
as it passed San Domingo, and the Adelantado had made 
haste to join his brother, whom he had long expected. On 
the 22nd of the month, the four vessels weighed anchor for 
the new town, and, after ten days of tedious beating up 
against wind and current, reached San Domingo on the 31st 
of August, 1498. The Admiral's health was far from restored ; 
but he at least had possession of his faculties, which was not 
the case when he reached Isabella from his Cuban cruise in 
1494. With this exception, there was a dreary likeness 
between the two returns, for now, as then, he was called 
upon to dismiss from his mind all thought of his triumph as 
explorer, and plunge abruptly into the cares and turmoil of 
a contest with rebellious colonists and revolted native tribes. 
The oral report which Don Bartholomew made to his 
brother of the occurrences in Hispaniola since the sailing 
of Pedro Alonzo's fleet in 1496 was little more than a 
catalogue of disaster. True, it began with an account of 
Don Bartholomew's journey to the southern coast to choose 
the site of San Domingo, and his subsequent progress 
through the territories of Behechio and Anacaona, at the 
western extremity of the island ; an episode which forms 
one of the most charming chapters in the early history of 
our continent. But the idyllic experiences in Xaragua were 
all too brief. During the absence of the Adelantado in the 
west, Francisco Roldan, whom the Admiral had left as 
Chief Justice of the Island, raised the standard of revolt at 
Isabella, gathered about him sixty or seventy of the more de- 
termined among the disaffected colonists, defied the authority 
of Don Diego Columbus, emptied the royal arsenal of its 
weapons and munitions of war, seized the horses and cattle 
in the royal corral, and marched out into the open country 
to live as his fancy dictated. The pretext he used to cloak 
his actions with his own countrymen was, that Juan Aguado 
had assured him that the Admiral would never be allowed to 
return to Hispaniola, and that it was not for high-spirited 
Castilians to support the authority and exactions of the other 



FROM PARADISE TO INFERNO. 337 

two alien governors, Dons Bartholomew and Diego. To the 
Indians he offered freedom from the tribute imposed upon 
them by the Admiral. At the bottom of the whole trouble 
seems to have lain Roldan's abduction of the wife of 
Guarionex, the Spaniards' ally, and Don Bartholomew's de- 
mand for her restoration to her lord ; but there must have 
existed, besides, a well-grounded hope among the rebels that 
i they could in fact supplant the Genoese brothers in the con- 
fidence of the King and Queen, which had its origin in the 
intrigues and suggestions of Aguado.^ Although the faction 
which rallied around the recreant Justice was a powerful and 
unscrupulous one, it was a minority. The fortresses through 
the settled portion of the island were garrisoned by men who 
remained faithful to the government ; most of the settlers at 
Isabella preserved at least a nominal allegiance to Don Diego, 
and a considerable body of the best soldiers were absent 
with Don Bartholomew in Xaragua. But what Roldan lacked 
in numbers he made up in resolution and daring. Gather- 
ing together several hundred natives, to act as bearers and 
purveyors, he led his band from place to place, beginning 
with the forts, and, when refused admittance in them, striking 
into the open Vega, and repeating the excesses of Margarite 
and his banditti. 

Don Diego, hampered by the dread of offending his 
Spanish sovereigns if he, a foreigner, employed violent means 
to subdue the rebellion, contented himself with securing 
such authority as remained to him and sending couriers to 
Don Bartholomew. The latter hastened towards Isabella, 
and engaged in parleys with Roldan, which proved fruitless. 
Threatening him with an assured vengeance in the near 
future, the Adelantado turned to executing the Admiral's 
instructions for the removal of the colony to San Domingo, 
and to the construction of several new caravels for traffic 
along the coast. The arrival of Pedro Coronel, with his two 
ships and their provisions, in February, 1498, facihtated the 
building of the new town, and the extension of mining and 

^ Las Casas, with the original documents before him, asserts that 
Roldan began to accumulate a store of arms, trappings, and horseshoes 
as soon as Columbus had sailed from Isabella in March, '95. 

22 



338 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

brazil-cutting, while it confirmed the authority of the Ad- 
miral's brothers in the minds of those who had not joined 
Roldan. Coronel, whose influence was of weight with all 
the earlier settlers, attempted to bring Roldan to reason ; but 
the latter ridiculed his efforts and boasted that, if Coronel's 
arrival had been delayed a week, an end would have been 
put to the government of the Admiral's brothers, if not to 
their lives as well. To add to the anarchy Guarionex, not 
unnaturally, revolted at the outrages put upon himself and 
his people by Roldan, and failed to discriminate between 
rebellious and loyal Spaniards in his revenge. For the 
safety of the colonists Don Bartholomew had to repress this 
native insurrection, the unlucky^ cacique fled to his neighbor 
Mayobanex, who succored him at his own peril, and the 
whole central region of the island was again thrown into a 
desolating war. 

At this juncture, the three vessels which, under the com- 
mand of Carvajal, Arana and Juan Antonio Columbus, had 
sailed direct for Hispaniola from the Canaries, arrived off 
the coast of the island. By an error in calculation they had 
sailed some 300 miles beyond San Domingo, and came to 
anchor in that part of the country where Roldan and his 
band happened to be. The rebel chief, simulating contin- 
ued loyalty to the Admiral, sent to the squadron to learn 
what its presence betokened. It was no difficult matter for 
him, in view of his known rank as Chief Justice, to deceive 
the newcomers into landing a large portion of their forces to 
march overland to San Domingo, since the difficulty of sail- 
ing back in the face of wind and currents was obvious to 
all. Once the party was landed, it was still easier to gain 
over the fresh arrivals with promises of unlimited plunder 
and license, and the three captains found themselves deserted 
by a great part of the emigrants they had brought from 
Spain. Juan Columbus and Araiia thereupon set sail for 
San Domingo to deliver at least their cargoes to Don Bar- 
tholomew, while Carvajal remained to use his powers of 
persuasion and diplomacy in convincing Roldan of the 
perilous folly of his treason. 

Such was the posture of affairs when the Admiral arrived. 



FROM PARADISE TO INFERNO. 339 

The new town of San Domingo was founded and well 
advanced ; the Adelantado had visited the western districts 
and discovered them to be fertile and productive ; many 
new mines had been found and brazil-forests located in 
flattering number; of promises of future success there 
was no lack. But insurrection was rife among the natives ; 
anarchy reigned among the colonists ; Roldan's revolt was 
absolutely unchecked ; no tribute was arriving from the 
native tribes; and Columbus was quick to realize that the 
disordered condition of this one island threatened to exert 
a far more potent influence on the minds of Ferdinand and 
Isabella than all the glory of his new discoveries. 

Not even the enthusiastic warmth of Ms reception by the 
loyal settlers of San Domingo could lighten the despondency 
which Don Bartholomew's recital had inspired. Only a few 
days ago he had, perhaps, been on the very outskirts of 
Paradise. That he was now at the portals of a veritable 
Inferno he could not permit himself to doubt. 




XVII. 

PRODIGAL MAGNANIMITY. 

COLUMBUS ujiderstood the characters of Ferdinand 
and Isabella far more accurately than can his modem 
biographers ; he knew that, to the King, the Indies, — now 
that the first glamour of their discovery was gone, — were 
valuable chiefly as a possible source of revenue for the 
prosecution of his French and Italian schemes ; he knew 
that, to the Queen, their chief interest lay in the vast exten- 
sion which their acquisition brought to the prestige of her 
own especial Kingdom of Castile. To her they were a pet, 
a fad ; to be administered in accordance with her own per- 
sonal theories and convictions : to her consort they were a 
magazine of gold and precious commodities unexpectedly 
placed at his disposal, and unspeakably helpful in the 
furtherance of his ambitious designs in Europe. Knowing 
this, Columbus realized the treacherous tenure by which he 
held the royal favor. He did not deceive himself by imag- 
ining that gratitude played a permanent part in his sov- 
ereigns' calculations ; the visit of Aguado had clarified his 
perceptions in that particular. He did not have any great 
confidence that the glory of his latest achievements would 
count for much at home, although he exhausted his powers 
in proving their value to King and Queen. He knew that 
one argument only — treasure — would satisfy Ferdinand 
and close his ears to the intrigues of the Admiral's enemies ; 
and that one charge was always easy of acceptance by Isa- 
bella, — that of injustice to her subjects. He found him- 
self confronted by a situation which involved an absolute 
340 



PRODIGAL MAGNANIMITY. 341 

cessation of all immediate financial returns, as surely as it 
implied a renewed and vociferous appeal to the Crown 
against his own and his brothers' administration of the 
colony. He could picture to himself the eagerness with 
which Fonseca and the old cabal would assail the monarchs 
with this new tale of disaster, and the weight their asser- 
tions against " the Genoese " would have in the absence of 
any golden counterbalance from him. He knew that to 
them he was a parvenu, an adventurer no longer fortunate, 
a speculator whose plans had failed egregiously. In his 
own conscience he was none of these, but he was not to be 
tried before himself. Whatever he might do, it would be 
misrepresented, and how could he avoid the use of violence 
if Roldan's defiant outbreak was to be suppressed? The 
dilemma was of the gravest ; but he met it squarely. The 
rebelhon must be ended and quiet restored in the island. 
If this could be done without bloodshed, he was prepared 
to compromise temporarily his own dignity. The true state 
of affairs would be laid before the King and Queen, and the 
future left with them. A revenue must be secured pending 
the reestablishment of order, and to assist in this Don 
Bartholomew must hasten back to Paria and obtain the 
largest possible quantity of pearls. Finally, the Admiral, 
once and for all, must be relieved of this harassing office of 
judging the Spaniards. So long as he, a foreigner, was 
obliged to do this, just so long would his authority be treated 
with contempt. 

His first step was to study the records of the formal 
inquiry which Don Bartholomew had instituted as to the 
circumstances of Roldan's rebellion. His next was to re- 
open this legal process, hear anew the evidence of all 
competent witnesses and review all pertinent correspond- 
ence. To him the result was so conclusive that he felt con- 
fident the sovereigns would be satisfied, even in spite of the 
intrigues he anticipated. Roldan had sent to San Domingo, 
in expectation of the Admiral's return, a specious letter 
endeavoring to excuse his disloyalty ; but this Columbus 
treated as waste paper. The facts spoke for themselves 
and admitted of no palliation. We have the emphatic 
testimony of Las Casas in support of this position : — 



342 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

" I have seen all these documents and known many of the 
witnesses, and all testified that they had never heard nor seen 
that the Adelantado [Don Bartholomew] had done or offered 
any injury to Roldan, but always showed him much honor and 
consideration, and they testified the same concerning the others 
who had rebelled with him." 

While this inquiry was in progress, Arana and Juan 
Antonio Columbus arrived with their vessels and the report 
of Roldan's treachery towards them, and a few days later 
Carvajal sailed into port and gave an account of his unsuc- 
cessful attempt to dissuade the rebels from their course. 
Notwithstanding these unfavorable reports, the Admiral 
determined to try persuasion before proceeding to extremes, 
and he derived some encouragement from the fact that Rol- 
dan had broken camp and followed Carvajal as far as Bonao, 
only eighty miles from San Domingo, where he had settled, 
as if to place himself within easy communication with his 
old master. 

With his own reunited fleet of six vessels, the two brought 
out by Coronel earlier in the year, and those built by Don 
Bartholomew, there were now ten or a dozen ships in the 
harbor. Those of the Admiral were under a heavy expense, 
being merely chartered from Juanoto Berardi, and he was 
desirous of sending them back to Spain without delay. As 
a first measure of diplomacy, he therefore announced that 
all of the old settlers who wished to return home might do 
so by these vessels, without regard to the terms of their 
enlistment with the Crown. This at once knocked away 
one of Roldan's strongest props, for he had made much 
capital out of the assertion that the Admiral would never 
return, and his brothers would keep the Spaniards in sub- 
jection for an indefinite period, until they themselves accum- 
ulated a vast treasure, when they, too, would abandon the 
colony and leave their victims to shift for themselves. As 
the news spread through the settled portion of the island, 
the colonists started towards San Domingo with an alacrity 
which showed that they, at least, had had enough of the 
Indies, and even the followers of Roldan were tempted to 
join the homeward exodus. To add a further incentive for 



PRODIGAL MAGNANIMITY. 343 

these men to throw down their arms, the Admiral directed 
Ballester, his trusty commandant at Fort Conception, near 
Roldan's camp, to confer with the rebels, offering amnesty 
to all, and inviting their chief to come to the city for a free 
discussion of all differences. To this overture Roldan replied 
with contempt, saying that he held the Admiral in his closed 
fist, and that before any negotiation could take place the 
latter must deliver to him all the Indian captives now held 
at San Domingo, for he, Roldan, had guaranteed all the 
natives their liberty and immunity from tribute. He also 
informed Ballester that in future he would carry on no 
negotiations with any emissary from the Admiral other than 
Carvajal ; and with this defiant response, Ballester had to 
be content. 

Roldan's own treatment of the Indians saves us the neces- 
sity of proving that his concern for their welfare was merely 
assumed ; but that he even thought it worth while using as 
a pretext indicates that opinion in the colony was divided 
as to the method of treating them. No such doubt dis- 
turbed the Admiral's plans, however, for as soon as the 
ships had discharged their cargoes and been refitted, he 
sent on board 800 of the natives captured in the insurrec- 
tion of Guarionex. Of these, 200 were "paid" to the 
owners of the vessels as compensation for the carriage of 
the remainder to Spain. With them was shipped such 
quantity of brazil-wood as had been cut, and a not imposing 
manifest of other colonial produce. The chartered vessels 
were allowed but thirty lay-days by their agreements, and 
the Admiral was anxious to get them away before the ist of 
October, when demurrage would begin to run ; but he held 
them some time longer in the hope of accomplishing some 
results with Roldan. Meanwhile two other caravels had 
been fitted out for Don Bartholomew's voyage of exploration 
to Paria, and these also were held in port, awaiting develop- 
ments. 

An impression had been made upon the rebels, despite their 
air of contumacy ; for a few days after Ballester's return, on 
October 17th, Roldan and his chief lieutenants, — Adrian de 
Moxica, Pedro de Gomez, and Diego de Escobar, — united 



344 



THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 



in a second letter to the Admiral, laying the whole blame for 
their defection upon Don Bartholomew ; claiming that their 
original purpose in deserting him was only to await the return 
of the Admiral, when they would submit the whole issue to 
him for decision ; but affirming that, in view of what they 
learned as to the Admiral's fierce anger towards them, they 
were afraid to place themselves in his power; and so 
they begged to be relieved of their several offices and salaries 
so that they might " with due regard to their good names " 
live as they pleased and be no longer considered servants of 
the Crown. The Admiral was quick to read between the 
lines of this precious production, and to see that his quondam 
servant had no stomach for fighting. Although somewhat sus- 
picious of Carvajal's loyalty, on account of Roldan's expressed 
preference for that officer, he decided to send both him 
and Ballester back to Bonao with a response so conciliatory 
that, in rejecting it, Roldan must put himself in open rebellion 
against the royal authority as delegated to the Admiral. The 
terms of this letter, which was written on the 20th of October, 
are suavity itself Addressing his " Dear friend," the Admiral 
refers to " certain differences " which had been reported to 
him on arriving, and declares that although he " should see 
it with his own eyes he would not believe that you [Roldan] 
would work for your own destruction, unless it be in something 
which was for my service." Greater differences than any 
which could now exist, he adds, can be easily settled " when 
you come to me to give me, with a willing heart, an account 
of your office as all have done whom I left in official posi- 
tions." There is absolutely no ground for fear of his dis- 
pleasure, or need for any safe conduct, for as soon as the 
writer had arrived in Hispaniola he had declared openly that 
all the insurgents might come to him with impunity, and this 
he affirms afresh. As to Roldan and his people going to 
Spain, the ships destined for the voyage had already been held 
eighteen days beyond their saihng time for this very purpose, 
and they would be held still longer but for the Indians on 
board, who were dying off. The writer then makes a friendly 
appeal to Roldan to weigh well the harm he is doing himself, 
particularly in the estimation of the King and Queen, to 



PRODIGAL MAGNANIMITY. 345 

whom the Admiral had so especially recommended the abili- 
ties and fidelity of the Chief Justice 'when recently at the 
royal Court, " for I gave them your name before any other 
when they asked me about the persons out here in whom the 
Adelantado could have confidence and trust, and so exalted 
your services that I am grieved now to think that they must 
hear so different an account by these very ships. See 
promptly," the Admiral urges, "what can be done or what 
the situation calls for, and let me know, for the ships have 
already sailed." This missive was duly delivered to Roldan 
by Ballester and Carvajal, and the latter reinforced it by so 
many and such convincing arguments that Roldan and his 
lieutenants were disposed to accept the Admiral's offer, and 
go to him for the purpose of reaching a composition of 
their dispute. But the rank and file opposed this, especially 
the deserters from the three caravels, declaring that if one 
went all must go, and that a general safe-conduct in writ- 
ing must be sent them by the Admiral before they would 
place themselves in his power. To this Roldan, Moxica, 
and their colleagues were forced to assent, assuring the 
Admiral's commissioners that as soon as the warranty was 
received they would all proceed at once to San Domingo, 
and giving them a letter to their principal stating the con- 
ditions upon which the rebels would surrender. Carvajal 
returned with this to the city, leaving Ballester in his fort at 
Conception. The latter wrote to his commander warmly 
eulogizing Carvajal's course as being " so devoted to the 
service of God, their Majesties and your Worship that 
neither Solomon nor any other Doctor could find any im- 
provement to make in it." . He also urged the Admiral to 
accept the proposals made by Roldan, distasteful though they 
were, for he had observed many of the commoner sort of 
colonists passing by Conception on their way to join the 
rebels, and feared that in time the Admiral would be de- 
serted by all but the comparatively small number of men of 
rank and personal retainers who surrounded him. Colum- 
bus did not relish this counsel, or the report made by 
Carvajal, and when he read Roldan's letter his anger rose 
to a white heat. These were the conditions on which alone 



346 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the rebels would agree to a conference : they were afraid 
Don Bartholomew would violate the Admiral's verbal safe- 
guard and do them harm, and therefore " since there is no 
cure for anything after it is done," — to quote Roldan's 
words, — they demanded that the Admiral sign the passport 
for Roldan and his adjutants which they enclosed ; that Don 
Bartholomew should solemnly swear to Carvajal and certain 
other cavaliers to respect the same as long as the rebels 
were in San Domingo and during the journey there and 
back, and that this oath should be signed by Carvajal and 
his companions. On these terms and these only would 
these gentry trust the Admiral and his brother. When 
Columbus read them, he vowed to bring the traitors to their 
senses by other methods than those of negotiation, and he 
took measures looking to an offensive campaign. But when 
he caused a private count to be made of the force upon which 
he could depend in the event of marching against the outlaws, 
he found that not more than seventy men were to be surely 
relied on under all circumstances. Putting the best face 
upon the matter he, accordingly, on the 26th of October, 
published two proclamations ; one guaranteeing to Roldan 
free and safe passage to and from San Domingo, and the 
other offering amnesty to all of the rebels and passage to 
Spain for such as deserved it, provided they reported at San 
Domingo within thirty days. Having done this, he could do 
no more than wait for the result. 

When Ballester returned from his first fruitless mission, the 
Admiral, disappointed in his hopes of being able to announce 
the subjugation of the rebellion, gave orders for the home- 
ward-bound caravels, five in number, to get under way and 
make all possible speed for Spain. They sailed on the i8th 
of October, carrying, besides the human and other cargo 
before mentioned, a large number of returning colonists. 
Many of these were at heart friendly to Roldan ; some of 
them, no doubt, were the bearers of letters from him and his 
symptithizers to influential personages at Court, if not to the 
Crown direct. To counteract these representations Colum- 
bus addressed two long communications to Ferdinand and 
Isabella, one relating to the voyage lately ended, and the 



PRODIGAL MAGNANIMITY. 347 

Other to the condition of the island as he found it upon his 
arrival. The first letter we have already quoted from exten- 
sively, as well as from the journal which accompanied it. 
The Admiral also forwarded with it the map he had made 
of Trinidad and Paria, showing their relation to the islands 
of the earlier discoveries and the course to be sailed to reach 
the new lands. He sent also the trophies of his cruise along 
the Parian coasts, — golden ornaments, a parcel of 160 or 1 70 
pearls (" although the quantity of pearls and gold be small," 
he wrote, '' I send them by reason of their quality, since until 
this time no one has seen pearls come out of the West "), and 
some of the colored cloths which the natives of Paria wore 
in lieu of more elaborate toilettes. In the same letter he 
reported that he had three caravels all ready for Don Bar- 
tholomew to continue the exploration of Paria, and that it 
was his intention to have them sail on the same day as the 
five ships bound for Spain, and spend six months in ascer- 
taining the extent of the new continent ; but that for the 
moment he was keeping his brother at his side until this 
aifair of Roldan's was settled. The Adelantado was a man 
of resources and an accomplished soldier, and in the event of 
hostilities his presence would be essential. 

In the second letter he dwelt upon Roldan's rebellion and 
the irreparable damage it had caused the royal interests in the 
Indies. This fellow, he stated, had set at naught the author- 
ity of Crown and Viceroy, and thrown the whole western part 
of the island into confusion. Moving from place to place, 
he robbed the Indians, violated their houses, kidnapped 
their wives and daughters, impressed into his service as many 
natives as he wanted, and treated with brutal cruelty those 
who hesitated to follow him. Other iniquities were perpe- 
trated which affronted the Admiral more than they shall our- 
selves ; these outlaws never confessed, ate meat on Saturdays, 
and totally neglected the offices of the Church. The country, 
he complains, is the best in the world for vagabonds, and 
such most of the colonists were becoming under the example 
set by Roldan. He does not look for much improvement 
until some worthy priests shall come out " rather to reform 
the faith of the Christians than to implant it in the Indians," 



348 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

and until he has been reinforced by new settlers, " of which 
50 or 60 should come out with every fleet, while I send back 
as many of the vicious and idle, as I am now doing." He 
declares frankly that he hardly dares to enforce the needful 
discipline, because " as a poor foreigner I am hated, charged 
with mistakes in settling the country, in my treatment of the 
people, and in numberless other things." He entreats his 
sovereigns, and repeats the entreaty several times, to send out 
" some learned man, a person experienced in administering 
justice," so that he might have the warrant of a Castilian 
court in proceeding against Castilian subjects. Relating his 
abortive negotiations with Roldan, he says the latter flatly 
rejected the proffered pardon, claiming he had done nothing 
requiring forgiveness, and that in any event the Admiral was 
a partial judge, since the quarrel was between his own brother 
and Roldan. The Admiral therefore intended to propose to 
the rebel leader that each side should present its case directly 
to the Crown ; the Admiral through Ballester and Carvajal, 
and Roldan through such envoys as he might elect ; that, while 
these commissioners were in Spain arguing the question, the 
rebels should return to their allegiance and all continue as 
originally ; but if they did not feel safe in doing this, that 
they should pass over to Porto Rico and there await the 
royal decision. By doing this he hoped to free Hispaniola 
from the curse of their misdeeds. In closing this recital, he 
uses the phrase which in the estimation of Las Casas cost 
him the government of the New World. " If these Justices," 
he writes, referring to Roldan and recreant colleagues, " do 
not come to an agreement with me, I am going to do ray 
utmost to destroy them." Admiral and Viceroy though he 
was, he was a foreigner ; rebels and bandits though they had 
become, they were Castilians, free subjects of the jealous 
King and Queen whom he was addressing. 

Turning to the burning question of revenue, the Admiral 
inveighs bitterly against those who had impeded for so long 
his departure from Spain : — 

"May God pardon those at the Court and in Seville," he 
writes, "who were the cause of delaying so long my despatch, 
because if I had come here in time, — as I could easily have 



PR ODIGAL MA GNANIMITY. 



349 



done within a year and even sooner, — the Indians would not 
have revoked and refused to pay the tributes they used to pay. 
I always said that it would be necessary to follow them up for 
three or four years, until they should be well accustomed to this, 
for we ought to suppose that they would otherwise learn their 
own strength." 

He avers that he will devote himself to reestablishing 
the former order of things, and that meantime real progress 
had been made by the colony as a whole ; for the Span- 
iards had learned to live on the native foods ; their cattle, 
sheep, swine, and fowls were increasing rapidly in number ; 
their life was far less burdensome than at first ; and, when 
labor should be more plentiful, great results were assured 
from cultivating the soil. He points out that Roldan's fol- 
lowing, which with his native servants numbered sometimes 
looo men, had no difficulty in sustaining themselves ; whence 
he argues in favor of allotting to each colonist the laborers 
necessary to till his portion of land. 

" I beg your Majesties," he adds farther on, " to allow these 
people to be utilized for a year or two now, until the colony is 
firmly established, for it is already well under way. You may 
see that all the seafaring folk and most of the landsmen are 
satisfied, and only lately two or three of the ship-masters who 
sailed announced that they would take to Seville as many slaves 
as any one desired who would pay 1500 maravedies for the pas- 
sage of each, to be deducted from the product of the sale. I 
accepted the offer for all and undertook to give them a cargo, 
for thus the vessels will return and bring supplies and other 
things which are necessary here, and so the business of the 
colony will advance. At present it is in a very bad way, for 
the colonists will not work, nor the Indians pay any tribute, by 
reason of what has occurred, and of my absence. The Adelantado 
has not been able to accomplish more than he has done, for he 
had no one near him in whom he could trust ; all complained 
and cursed the enterprise, saying that they had been out here 
five years and had not enough even to buy a shirt. But now I 
have revived their energies, and what I say to them seems to be 
reasonalile : that they shall all be soon paid and receive their 
pay regularly in the future." 

In making this suggestion, the Admiral was adopting a 
measure which Don Bartholomew had initiated to offset the 



350 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

attractions held out to the colonists by the rebels. The idle 
life of easy license led by the latter was contrasted by the 
loyal settlers with their own hard lot, and to pacify these 
the Adelantado had granted to them as many Indians, from 
among the captives or from those who refused tribute, as 
each Spaniard required to cultivate his land, or do his work. 
In asking the King and Queen to sanction this arrangement 
for a season, Columbus intended no more than to continue 
an arrangement the abrupt cessation of which would revive 
discontent ; but in his allusion to the offer of the ship- 
master he was referring to a slave-trade pure and simple. 
The pay due the colonists by the Crown was sadly in arrears ; 
the colonists were aware that the island produced no reve- 
nue, while the Admiral knew that there were no other means 
available either in Spain or Hispaniola for the payment. To 
retain the majority of Spaniards in their allegiance without 
compensation, when Roldan was offering them their share 
of Xaragua for nothing, was out of the question. The only 
solution of the financial difficulty was the one so common 
among the Portuguese in Africa, — to send slaves back and 
obtain funds from their sale with which to maintain the 
colony for the nonce. The proposal was naturally accepta- 
ble to the colonists, for they all knew that slaves on board 
ship were as good as money in hand ; hence the readiness 
with which they accepted the plan. The Admiral had his 
own reasons for believing it would not be rejected by the 
King and Queen. The comparative ease with which this 
financial problem was solved was probably the cause of the 
ampler scheme he proceeded to unfold to his sovereigns. 
Perhaps, after all, a revenue might be found immediately, 
without waiting for the restoration of the tribute or the 
gathering of gold and pearls. If so, he knew that Ferdi- 
nand at least would turn a deaf ear to the calumnies of those 
who sought the Admiral's overthrow. If 600 slaves had 
been so readily sent to Spain, why not more, gathered from 
the insurgent tribes, the cannibals and the districts which 
were contumacious in the matter of revenue? The idea 
was as old as Commerce itself; it was pecuharly famiHar to 
Spanish minds, and that it possessed no horror either to 



PRODIGAL MAGNANIMITY. 35 1 

Columbus or his royal patrons is evidenced by the excessive 
bluntness with which he advocated it. 

" From here may be sent," he wrote, " with the sanction of 
the Holy Trinity, ^ as many slaves and as much brazil-wood as 
can be sold. Of these slaves, if what I have heard is correct, 
they tell me 4000 can be disposed of, which at a low valuation 
will amount to 20,000,000 maravedies ; and 4000 hundredweight 
of brazil will amount to as much more, the cost of which here 
will be 6,000,000 maravedies. Thus, at first sight, 40,000,000 
maravedies would be secured, if this should issue as stated. 
The argument which they use in support of it certainly seems 
sound, because in Castile, Portugal, Aragon, Italy, Sicily, the 
Portuguese and Aragonese Islands and the Canaries many slaves 
are employed, and I believe that already from Guinea not so 
many are coming as formerly. Even if they should come, one 
Indian is worth three negroes, as any one may see. When I 
was lately at the Cape de Verd Islands, where the people have a 
large traffic in slaves and are constantly sending ships to procure 
them, — for they are at the very door, — I observed that 8000 
maravedies was asked for the poorest specimens. For the brazil- 
wood, they say that in Castile, Aragon, Venice, Genoa, France, 
Flanders, and England there is a great demand ; so that from 
these two sources, according to my informants, these 40,000,000 
maravedies can be obtained, unless vessels should be lacking for 
the trade, and these will not fail I am sure, under Our Lord's 
blessing, once they find the voyage to be profitable." 

To make the proposition unmistakably business-like, the 
Admiral adds, " Even if some of the slaves die at first it will 
not be always thus, for so used the negroes and the Canary 
Islanders at the beginning ; and these Indians offer still a 
greater advantage over them, since one who survives will 
not be sold by his owner for the first price that is offered." 
Who the " informants " were who advocated this cold- 
blooded- traffic with the Admiral it is idle to inquire. He 
never shrank from the consequences of his convictions. In 
making this proposal to Ferdinand and Isabella he was 
reasonably sure of its reception, knowing that to them, as to 
him and the rest of Europe, the slaves would be dealt with 

^ The seeming blasphemy is a conventional phrase. To this day 
one Portuguese thief will say to another, " I'll join you in that job to- 
night, if God pleases." 



352 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

as merchandise, as much as brazil-wood, — precisely as he 
coupled them in his letter. We have already remarked that 
the little flicker of much belauded " humanity " shown by 
Isabella anent the enslaved Indians was due to her anger at 
a presumed invasion of her jealously guarded prerogatives 
as sovereign of Castile. It was satisfied with the return of 
just nineteen natives to Hispaniola, out of a total of several 
thousands scattered through the fields and galleys of Spain 
and Portugal. We have quoted the Admiral's own words in 
our desire to show our readers the man as he was. Those 
who care to objurgate him as a " slave driver" will find it a 
safer and more agreeable — if less logical and consistent — 
task than would be a like criticism of those of their own 
neighbors who have bought and sold their darker brethren 
in other times and seasons. 

Columbus was far more concerned in the effect his failure 
to make a sufficient remittance to the royal treasury would 
have, than in any possibility of disagreement between his 
sovereigns and himself as to the form thereof. With the 
memory of his late experience with Fonseca and Bribiesca 
fresh in his mind, he sought to forestall the embarrassments 
which he felt sure they would continue to create. 

" I entreat your Majesties," was his closing adjuration, " to 
order that the persons who have charge of this undertaking in 
Seville be not hostile to it and do not obstruct it ; because it 
would have been yet more prosperous if my fortune had pro- 
cured that some one who was well disposed toward it had been 
in charge ; or at least that the person in authority had not been 
opposed to it and sought to ruin and defame it, encouraging 
those who were inimical and setting himself against those who 
were favorable, for, as we constantly see, a good reputation, 
next to God, is what makes things successful." 

Fonseca, to whom all the Admiral's correspondence sooner 
or later found its way, must have smiled significantly in his 
chair at Seville as he read this appeal from the far-off Indies. 

The departure of the five ships bearing, as he knew, the 
Admiral's version of his rebellion, brought Roldan to a real- 
izing sense of the risk he was running. Upon receiving the 
safe-conducts brought by Ballester and Carvajal, he set out 



PRODIGAL MAGNANIMITY. 353 

with some of his companions, sometime in November, for 
San Domingo and presented himself before the Admiral. 
There is no record of the circumstances of the interview, 
beyond the notice that it took place in the presence of many 
witnesses. Roldan formulated his demands, the Admiral 
stated what he could and what he could not concede, and 
Roldan returned to Bonao to lay the result before his 
companions, accompanied by the Admiral's majordomo, 
Diego de Salamanca. The latter returned in a few days 
with the rebels' ultimatum, couched in such arrogant terms 
that its acceptance was impossible. Carvajal was again 
called in as negotiator and sent to Bonao with a new sched- 
ule of conditions, which the Admiral declared he would sign 
if Roldan would abide by them. Carvajal found the rebels 
actually besieging the worthy Ballester in Fort Conception 
and on the point of compelling its surrender. At his 
approach they suspended operations and withdrew to dis- 
cuss his propositions. The outcome of it all was, that Rol- 
dan agreed to the Admiral's main condition, which was that 
they should leave Hispaniola and return to Spain, but added 
certain demands ; that two vessels, fully equipped and sup- 
plied, should be sent around to Xaragua for their voyage ; 
that each man should be allowed to carry with him the 
women of his harem and one male slave ; and that to Roldan 
and each of his fellows should be given a certificate of good 
service, full arrears of back-pay, and all the property they 
claimed to be theirs. When this was brought to the Admiral, 
for the sake of seeing himself free of this incubus, and devot- 
ing himself to the improvement of the colony, he accepted 
it subject to a proviso : that the embarkation should take 
place within fifty days ; that Roldan should permit no more 
Spaniards to join his band ; that no kidnapped Indian should 
be taken to Spain against his will ; and that all the property 
belonging to the Crown should be dehvered over to the 
Admiral's representative on the arrival of the two caravels 
at Xaragua. For some reason of his own it suited Roldan 
to accept the revised agreement, and he signed it on the 
1 7th of November ; sending back to the Admiral the insolent 
message, that if the latter did not sign it so that Roldan had 

23 



354 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

it back within ten days, he would add as many men to his 
band as sought liim. In less than the time mentioned the 
agreement was in Roldan's hands, duly signed and sealed, 
and the rebels took up their march for Xaragua, saying they 
were going to prepare for their voyage. 

Such was the x\dmirars haste to get rid of these turbulent 
outlaws, that he took two of the vessels destined for Don 
Bartholomew's exploration of Paria and ordered them to be 
made ready for the passage to Spain. They were not com- 
pleted until early in January, 1499 ; but the moment they 
could sail with safety the Admiral despatched them for 
Xaragua, sending Carvajal to arrange for the prompt depart- 
ure of the rebels. To provide for a possible contingency, 
Carvajal carried a special proclamation in which the Admiral 
agreed that such of Roldan's men as preferred to remain in 
Hispaniola would be allowed the same holdings of land and 
emoluments as other colonists. But ill fortune pursued every 
step of this wearisome affair. One of the caravels was so 
damaged in a storm encountered soon after leaving San 
Domingo that she had to be beached in the nearest harbor, 
where she and her consort were delayed until the end of 
March. When they finally reached Xaragua, Roldan coolly 
declared that as they were not ready for him within the fifty 
stipulated days the whole agreement was annulled, as it was 
obvious that the Admiral had intentionally held them back 
with the purpose of finding an excuse for revenging himself 
on the rebels. In despair Carvajal called upon Francisco 
de Garay, who had accompanied him as notary, to make a 
formal acta of his demand upon Roldan for a compliance 
with the agreement, and his refusal, and this he sent back to 
the Admiral with a report of all that had occurred. 

Columbus had left San Domingo, as soon as the caravels 
had sailed out of the port, and gone to Isabella, intending 
to make a visit to all the Spanish settlements and to confer 
with the native caciques on his way, hoping to reestablish 
order among the colonists and confidence among the In- 
dians. He had met with such measure of success as to 
satisfy him that, in the absence of any fresh disturbing inci- 
dents, the island would speedily become what he so ardently 



PRODIGAL MAGNANIMITY. 355 

desired, — a source of permanent and progressive revenue. 
The news of Roldan's last outbreak shattered these flattering 
expectations, and the Admiral hastened back to San Domingo. 
From there he addressed a letter to Roldan and his chief 
lieutenant, Adrian de Moxica, couched in amicable terms, 
pointing out the danger of their course, its utter futility, and 
the benefits which would accrue to them by abandoning it. 
To this, in due course, Roldan replied ironically, thanking 
the Admiral for his good counsel, but averring that he had 
no use for it. Carvajal, however, succeeded in persuading 
him to so far moderate his arrogance as to return to the first 
understanding, — to remit the whole matter to the Crown 
for settlement, each side sending commissioners to Spain to 
argue its case. Carvajal promised that a single caravel 
should be furnished for this purpose, but Roldan refused to 
accept anything but the Admiral's official pledge ; whereupon 
Carvajal set out for San Domingo, followed by Roldan, who 
sought a private interview with him on the way and insisted 
that he desired to meet the Admiral and arrange the whole 
matter, but was prevented by his colleagues. The two ves- 
sels were ordered back from Xaragua to San Domingo by 
Carvajal. 

Six months had been worse than squandered in these 
frivolous disputes. It is entirely probable that Roldan was 
constrained by his associates to continue a quarrel of which 
he was personally heartily weary. They dared not trust 
him, though he was willing to trust the Admiral. The latter 
was bent on shedding no Castilian blood except in the very 
last extremity. He knew it would never be forgiven him by 
Ferdinand or Isabella, whatever the justification. It was 
nothing new for him to be patient, but never was his patience 
more grievously tried. When Carvajal returned, the Ad- 
miral approved his latest offer, wrote out a new safe-conduct 
for Roldan and his associates, and even accepted the indig- 
nity of permitting Carvajal, Coronel, and other of his cap- 
tains to endorse it with their personal guarantee, as the rebels 
demanded. A meeting was arranged for on board a caravel 
anchored in the Bay of Azua, some 80 or 100 miles west of 
San Domingo. Thither the Admiral repaired, accompanied 



356 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

by many of his stanchest friends, and, on August 22nd, 
Roldan and his fellow-conspirators came on board for the 
conference. It is not necessary to rehearse the charges and 
counter-charges, the proposals and amendments which were 
debated. The upshot was, that it was agreed that the two 
caravels should sail for Spain with not more than fifteen of 
the rebels ; that all should be done for the band that the 
former arrangement provided ; that those who remained 
should be allotted lands and laborers ; and that the Admiral 
should publicly restore Roldan as Chief Justice, and proclaim 
that he was a faithful officer who had been misled by design- 
ing persons. When Roldan went ashore and reported this 
adjustment to his followers, they flatly refused to sanction it. 
After a couple of days' deliberation they sent on board their 
conditions, which included all that the Admiral had agreed 
to and certain other extravagant concessions, of which the 
last was the worst : that the Admiral must consent that, in 
the event of his failing to carry out the terms of the agree- 
ment to their entire satisfaction, they were to have the legal 
right to band together and compel him by force, by any means 
in their power and discretion, to fulfil the bargain as they 
interpreted it ! 

The Admiral accepted the whole shameful demand, stipu- 
lating only that if the rebels ever again failed in their alle- 
giance his compact with them was to be void, and they were to 
be liable for all their past offences as well as any more recent 
ones. Las Casas infers that at some stage of the long con- 
test, — which had been dragged on now for a year, — a ves- 
sel had arrived from Spain bringing replies to the letters 
sent by the five vessels which sailed in October, '98, and 
that among these was a communication from Fonseca urg- 
ing the Admiral to take no extreme measures until the King 
and Queen could determine what was best to be done. The 
Admiral himself, in the report he made to the sovereigns, 
does not refer to this. He recites instead the vast harm 
already done to the interests of the Crown in the Indies 
by the prevalent anarchy ; the general demoralization of the 
colonists ; the formation of at least two other bands of free- 
booters who purposed imitating in the eastern districts of 



PRODIGAL MAGNANIMITY. 357 

the island the excesses committed by Roldan in the west ; 
the indefinite cessation of all revenue ; and the utter destruc- 
tion of all prospects of a further extension of the Crown's 
authority in other islands, and on the lately found Terra 
Firma. These were the motives which led him, forced as 
he was to forego the infliction of a righteous and sufficient 
punishment, to prefer his own humiliation to a continuance 
of a situation so disastrous to the interests committed to 
him. 

"Thus," he wrote, "in order to avoid this evil, hoping that 
their Majesties would provide a remedy for all that was done 
and that whoever should read that agreement would clearly see 
that neither its spirit nor its contents were reasonable, but that 
it is against all the dictates of justice and utterly beyond that 
quality, and that it was signed and promulgated under compul- 
sion, I had to execute both it and the other one making the 
appointment of Chief Justice. Concerning the latter, after the 
first settlement was agreed to and signed, Roldan and all his 
people broke out afresh because he was not willing that any one 
superior to him should be recognized in the contract ; all of 
them shouting loudly that they would hang all my followers who 
were on shore if they did not go on board at once ; wherefore I 
was obliged to sign the other undertaking as they required, for 
the time and reasons already given." 

Apart from the indignity placed upon and borne by him, 
the Admiral had reason to be content with the result of his 
abnegation, viewing it, as he did, as a merely temporary 
sacrifice. Roldan and his party came into San Domingo 
and busied themselves with vaunting their exploits and 
swaggering to their hearts' content. The colonists in general 
were inclined to look upon them as heroes and the Admiral's 
authority suffered in consequence ; but Roldan himself saw 
that his interest lay in gaining as far as he might the 
Admiral's forgiveness, and seems to have exerted his influ- 
ence in the direction of peace and harmony. The adjust- 
ment of all disputes, and the various concessions granted the 
ex-rebels, were publicly proclaimed on September 28th, and 
the two caravels were duly despatched to Spain with the 
respective versions of the negotiations and settlement. 



358 



THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 



This done, the Admiral was about to turn again to the 
restoration of order in the concerns of his long distracted 
government, preparatory to returning himself to Spain to 
confer with their Majesties, when he was confronted with 
an emergency in the last direction from which one could 
have been expected. Word was brought to San Domingo 
that Alonzo de Hojeda, with three caravels, was at anchor 
in the port of Yaquimo, 300 miles west of the city, busily 
occupied in cutting and loading a cargo of brazil-wood. 




XVIII. 

THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 

THE five vessels despatched from San Domingo on Oc- 
tober i8th, 1498, arrived at Seville about Christmas. 
The voyage had been a difficult and disastrous one, and many 
of the Indian slaves had died on the passage and been thrown 
to the sharks. Those who survived seem to have been sold 
in regular course, and their product covered into the royal 
treasury. Neither Ferdinand nor Isabella thought it neces- 
sary to interfere in their fate, arguing, no doubt, that if the 
victims did but know, they were better off in Christian bond- 
age than in heathen Hberty. But there was one matter which 
riveted their attention, even to the exclusion of any adequate 
consideration of the Admiral's new discoveries, and that was 
the rebellion of Roldan. Little as they appear to have 
heeded the Admiral's speculations concerning Paradise, the 
King and Queen paid jealous heed to his report of the insur- 
rection, as they doubtless did to the excuses offered by the 
rebels. Whether they really acknowledged the force of the 
complaint made by Columbus, — that his hands were tied 
as to an efficient administration of justice, — or whether they 
merely used his appeal for a coadjutor as a cloak, is left in 
doubt by succeeding events. The evidence is in favor of 
their sincerity, at least at the outset. Whatever their motive, 
they acted with unusual promptness, for on the 21st of March, 
1499, they issued a commission to Francisco de Bobadilla 
directing him to proceed at once to Hispaniola, investigate 
the outbreak, and chastise the guilty. Both the choice of their 
delegate and the tenor of his original instructions indicate a 

359 



360 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

disposition to render aid to the Admiral. Bobadilla was a 
Court official of some distinction, with nothing in his past 
record to justify doubt as to the wisdom of his appointment. 
The commission itself was couched in terms significant of an 
emphatic determination to uphold Columbus in his authority. 

" Know ye," the document ran, " that Don Christopher Colum- 
bus, our Admiral of the Ocean Sea and of the islands and con- 
tinent in the Indies, has sent to us a report saying that while he 
was absent from the said islands and at our Court certain per- 
sons in them, including a Justice, rose in rebellion in the said 
islands against the said Admiral and the other Justices he had 
appointed there in our name ; and that although such persons 
and the said Justice were warned not to enter into the said rebel- 
lion and uproar, they were not willing to abandon it, but rather 
persisted and still continue in the said rebellion, roaming through 
that island, committing robberies and doing other iniquities, 
damages, and violences in contempt of their duty to God and 
to ourselves. . . . Wherefore we command you that you set 
out immediately for the said islands and continent in the Indies 
and hold your inquiry, seeking to learn by whatever methods 
and in whatever quarters may seem best the truth of all the 
above, informing yourself who and what persons they were who 
rebelled against the said Admiral, and for what cause or pretext, 
and what robberies, outrages, or damages they have perpetrated, 
and all else which may seem to you necessary to fully acquaint 
you with the matter. Having obtained this information and 
being possessed of the tnith, you shall seize the persons and 
sequester the property of those whom you may find guilty, 
and shall proceed against those you have secured, as well as 
against such as are at large, with the extreme penalties, both civil 
and criminal, which you find permissible by law." 

Had Bobadilla been sent out promptly with these powers, 
and discharged his office with common discretion, the revolt 
in the island would have been stamped out, and the colony 
spared many years of confusion and strife. Before he was 
ready to leave Spain, a radical change took place in the 
attitude of Ferdinand and Isabella towards Columbus, the 
consequences of which overwhelmed the latter with ruin 
and degradation. 

Las Casas attributes this withdrawal of the royal favor 
primarily to the enmity of Fonseca for the Admiral " which," 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 36 1 

he remarks, "was almost notorious, and the evidences of 
which I saw with my eyes, heard with my ears, and under- 
stood with my mind." Certainly the record supports the 
assertion. As soon as the Admiral's report and map reached 
his hands, Fonseca laid them before Hojeda, who had left 
Hispaniola for Spain some time before and bore a grudge 
against the Admiral, the cause of which is not known. 
What were the especial ties between these two men is also 
matter for conjecture, but there is no question as to their 
common hostility to Columbus. With the latter's charts 
and letters before him, illustrated by his own experiences 
among the islands, Hojeda saw the opportunity of his life. 
In flagrant disregard of the exclusive and repeatedly con- 
firmed concessions made to the Admiral, Fonseca issued a 
license to Hojeda to make a voyage of discovery and trade 
to the Indies, excepting from its provisions only the coun- 
tries claimed by Portugal in the remote East and the lands 
discovered by Columbus prior to J4gS- The employment 
of this date shows conclusively that the deliberate purpose 
of the license was to allow Hojeda to reap the advantages of 
the Admiral's discoveries of Paria and the pearl region. 
Hojeda had no difficulty in obtaining four caravels and the 
necessary companions, among whom were Juan de la Cosa, 
the former pilot of Columbus, and Americus Vespucci. He 
made his preparations with such activity that he was able 
to sail from Cadiz on the 20th of May, steering the course 
laid down in the Admiral's charts. Striking the coast of 
South America, 300 miles below the mouth of the Orinoco, 
he followed it to the north and west, passed through the 
Mouths of the Serpent and Dragon, touched at Margarita 
and continued along Terra Firma as far as the Gulf of Mara- 
caibo. Thence he bore away for Hispaniola, where he 
arrived, as Columbus was informed, on the 5th of Septem- 
ber. As though to emphasize his determination to trample 
on all the solemn engagements made by the Crown with the 
Admiral, Fonseca issued several other licenses for voyages 
similar to that undertaken by Hojeda. W^e have the record 
of at least five of these. A wealthy merchant of Seville, 
Guerra by name, secured one of the permits and sent out a 



362 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

vessel commanded by his brother and navigated by Pedro 
Alonzo Niiio, that other pilot of the Admiral's who had 
accompanied him at the time of the discovery of Paria and 
had returned with the five ships. Armed with copies of 
his charts these worthies set sail in June ; pursued the 
course laid down but bearing more to the south ; struck the 
new continent still nearer the Equator than Hojeda ; con- 
tinued on past Paria and Margarita, and finally reached a 
point on the coast of the modern Venezuela at or near La 
Guayra. Thence they returned to Spain " loaded with 
pearls as though they had been straw," according to Peter 
Martyr. In December, yet another of the Admiral's former 
companions, and one of the most notable, Vincente Yaiiez 
Pinzon, taking with him three of the skilled mariners who 
had sailed with Columbus when he discovered Paria, set out 
on a similar voyage. Following closely the Admiral's track, 
but adopting his hint as to crossing the Equator well to the 
east, Pinzon made the coast of the modern Brazil in the 
neighborhood of Cape St. Augustine, pursued his way north- 
ward, discovering the Amazon River in passing, touched at 
Paria, kept on to the west along Terra Firma for several 
hundred miles, and, finally, returned to Spain by way of 
Hispaniola. It does not consist with the scope of our 
narrative to carry this record further. Diego de Lepe, with 
the Admiral's ex-pilot, Bartholomew Roldan, and Rodrigo 
de Bastidas, with Juan de la Cosa again, undertook, the fol- 
lowing year, to emulate the exploits of their predecessors, 
and, following the now well-worn path, pushed on past the 
farthest cape theretofore reached, and attained the vicinity 
of Darien before putting about for Spain. 

All these expeditions, without exception, were based on 
the Admiral's charts interpreted by pilots or seamen who 
had sailed with him. All of them paid him that homage of 
flattery which is alleged to lie in a servile imitation. All 
of them were legitimate, in so far that they were authorized 
by Ferdinand and Isabella, or by their agent Fonseca ; and 
all of them were directed solely and purely to commercial 
ends. Gold, pearls, brazil-wood, and slaves, slaves, slaves ; 
these were the openly avowed objects of each of the voyages 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 



J^j 



recited, including that in which Americus Vespucci so easily 
gained, with some, a reputation for intrepid enterprise and 
philosophical absorption in the mysteries of Nature. The 
King and Queen found no difficulty in accepting their share 
of each class of the proceeds brought from the coasts their 
Admiral had found. Although the slaves were, in these 
cases, the product of rank kidnapping, they were sold for 
the benefit of whom it might concern without let or hin- 
drance. When their Catholic Majesties had cause to suppose 
that anything was withheld from entry, they proceeded against 
the returned adventurer with a viciousness w.orthy of Shylock. 
By some occult process of reasoning, they satisfied their 
consciences that there was a difference between the natives 
of Paria and those of Hispaniola, and that the former might 
be legitimately abducted by Hojeda, Pinzon, and Vespucci, 
while a great to-do must be made about the latter. Having 
broken faith with Columbus like Turks, Ferdinand and 
Isabella pocketed their share of the plunder which resulted 
with as little scruple as Buccaneers. 

Such were the immediate consequences of the Admiral's 
announcement of his finding of the "great land" under the 
Equator, and such the recompense prepared for him during 
the weary months in which he was submitting to one indignity 
after another, each more galling than that preceding it, in 
his devotion to what he believed to be the wishes of his 
sovereigns. Far more ingenious pens than ours have exerted 
their skill in endeavoring to explain away the apparent faith- 
lessness of Ferdinand and Isabella, or, at least, to exculpate 
the Queen. That they have failed is due to no want of 
earnestness, but to the inherent hopelessness of the effort. 
No possible sophistry can be found to cloak the naked 
injustice, and where neither King nor Queen attempted a 
defence it is superfluous for us to concoct one. Greed and 
jealousy were the genuine motives, ugly though the terms 
look when applied to characters otherwise great. The grants 
made to Columbus, and so solemnly ratified to his descend- 
ants, were perpetual, and subject to no conditions save the 
finding of land beyond the mysterious Ocean Sea. His 
reports of his latest discoveries, supported by the arguments 



364 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

he employed to establish their far-reaching importance, 
opened the eyes of the most skeptical as to the probable 
range of his achievements. In his entanglement with his 
colonists, and the hue and cry raised against him, the sov- 
ereigns found the opportunity for ignoring his rights without 
any great danger of having to face a reckoning, and they 
acted as their interests dictated. They were neither better 
nor worse than the spirit of their times, and were they not 
the inheritors of Divine Right? It was not the first time, or 
the last, that in a partnership with the Crown the subject 
was left with its autograph and seals as his share of the 
profits. The privilege of petition and expostulation was 
always his — and much good might it do him. 

The nullification of their engagements with Columbus con- 
cerning the navigation and commerce of the western seas 
was not the only blow aimed at him by Ferdinand and 
Isabella in the spring of 1499. Two months after their 
appointment of Bobadilla as special commissioner to assist 
the Admiral in the restoration of order, they issued, on the 
2ist of May, two new decrees which deprived the latter of 
every vestige of authority and prerogative. The first, ad- 
dressed to all the officers and subjects of the Crown in the 
Indies, directed them to receive Bobadilla as Governor and 
Supreme Judge of the Islands and Terra Firma, and con- 
ferred upon him the exclusive government of those regions. 
The second, addressed to the Admiral, his brothers, and his 
lieutenants in charge of the forts, vessels, and other royal 
property, ordered them to deliver the same over to Bobadilla 
as Governor, dispensed with the formalities usually attendant 
upon a change of administration, and established the penalty 
for treason in the event of any hesitation or delay being 
shown. The only explanation vouchsafed by the sovereigns 
to the man who held their beautifully engrossed parchments, 
constituting him and his heirs Perpetual Governors of the 
Indies and Admirals of the Ocean Sea, was embraced in 
these lines : — 

" The King and Queen to Don Christopher Columbus. Our 
Admiral of the Ocean Sea : We have commanded Don Fran- 
cisco de Bobadilla, the bearer of this, to say to you on our 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 365 

behalf certain things which he will communicate. We ask you 
to give him faith and credence and to put the same into execu- 
tion. At Madrid, the 26th of May, 1499. I, the King. I, the 
Queen." 

The powers conferred upon Bobadilla were specifically 
"for as long as it shall be our wish and pleasure," and this 
may be interpreted as intimating that they were only pro- 
visional. At the same time, the tenor and suminary nature 
of his installation point to some sudden and deeply rooted 
distrust of Columbus. In default of any sufficient elucida- 
tion by the records of the period, various causes have been 
suggested for this abrupt accession of royal displeasure. By 
some historians it is attributed to the charges made (or 
supposed to have been made) by Roldan's partisans, that 
Columbus was plotting the betrayal of the Indies to a rival 
power. Others have held that the charge was that he and 
his brothers were conspiring to seize the government of the 
New World for their own advantage. Yet others, following 
the lead of Las Casas, ascribe the Admiral's downfall to the 
irresistible vehemence of Ferdinand and Isabella's righteous 
indignation when they read the propositions made by Colum- 
bus for the shipment of slaves to Europe. None of these 
hypotheses are supported by a jot of evidence, and the last 
one is disproved by the conduct of the King and Queen 
before, at, and long after the time of Bobadilla's nomination 
as governor.^ What took place between March and May, 
to convert their intention of aiding Columbus into a purpose 
to supplant him, must remain matter for conjecture until 

^ Take, for example, this extract from the contract between Bastidas 
and the Crown, signed June 5, 1500 : "Also, that of all the gold, silver, 
copper, lead, tin, quicksilver, or other metal, and all the mother-of- 
pearl, pearls, precious stones and jewels, and all the slaves, — both black 
and bright-skinned, — who in our kingdoms are held and reputed to 
be slaves, and all the monsters, serpents, and other wild beasts, and all 
the fish, birds, spices, drugs, and everything else, whatever be its name, 
nature, or value, ive shall have the one-fourth part of all that remains 
after deducting the cost of equipping, chartering, and maintaining the 
squadron and the other expenses of the voyage." And yet Columbus 
is the " slave driver," and Ferdinand and Isabella are applauded for 
their repugnance to his proposals. 



366 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

additional light is obtained ; but we are disposed to find the 
explanation in the persistent assaults made upon Columbus 
by Roldan's sympathizers at Court, abetted by Fonseca's 
influence and that of the old Boil-Margarite cabal, and coin- 
ciding with the sovereigns' determination to repudiate their 
compact with the Admiral as soon as they ascertained the 
enormous import of his latest discovery. Having originally 
commissioned Bobadilla in response to the Admiral's own 
appeal for a judicial colleague, they found in the charges 
made against him a pretext for depriving him of all authority 
when they decided to violate his other privileges. As vice- 
roy and governor of the new-found lands he might possibly 
be capable of some resistance ; as a cashiered officer of the 
Crown he was harmless. Whatever explanation we may 
adopt, we must not lose sight of one fact ; both the license 
granted to Hojeda and his successors, and the appointment 
of Bobadilla to displace Columbus, were acts of arrogant 
bad faith. By each a solemnly ratified covenant was broken, 
after the stipulated consideration had been far more than 
fulfilled by Columbus. These two acts were coincident in 
time and in scope, and where the perfidy was so cynically 
overt it seems to be a waste of time to look for concealed 
motives which may be forced into consistency with justice. 
Ferdinand and Isabella concluded they could now dispense 
with Columbus, and they made no scruple about violating 
their pledges to do so. 

There is no notice of any vessel arriving in Spain from San 
Domingo between the five which reached Cadiz at Christ- 
mas, 1498, and the two which arrived also about Christ- 
mas, in 1499, bearing the representatives sent by the 
Admiral and the rebels to plead their respective causes 
before the throne. The delay in Bobadilla' s departure for 
his new government does not seem, therefore, to be due to 
any doubt as to the propriety of their action on the part of 
the King and Queen. The conjecture advanced by Las 
Casas, that the sovereigns were preoccupied with the threat- 
ening condition of affairs among the recently conquered 
Moors of Granada, will scarcely account for the detention 
of Bobadilla, for the famous rising in the Alpuxarras did 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. "36/ 

not occur until the following year. It seems to us more 
probable that the Crown, having provided for the Admiral's 
removal, waited to hear the result of Roldan's insurrection 
before sending out Bobadilla. In other words, it was 
possible that Roldan might save the Crown the necessity of 
deposing Columbus. The theory that Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella suspended all active proceedings in the matter, hoping 
to receive satisfactory explanations from the Admiral, is 
disproved by the fact that their final action in the premises 
was taken after they had such a justification in their hands. 
The real solution in the enigma probably lies in the exag- 
gerated importance we attach to the part which the affairs 
of Hispaniola played in Spanish politics at that juncture. 
Ferdinand was deeply absorbed in the intricate tangle of 
European statecraft, and his consort was no less busily occu- 
pied with the establishment of the Inquisition. The larger 
interests of the Crown in the Indies were provided for by 
the virtual cancellation of the Admiral's privileges: the 
less important affairs of the colony in Hispaniola could be 
safely left for the time being. Of revenue there was little 
prospect for the moment, whether Viceroy or outlaw were 
victorious, and, apart from this, the disturbances among a 
few hundred subjects in a remote island did not call for 
instant attention to the exclusion of more important ques- 
tions lying nearer home. Whatever the reason, from the 
date of his commission in May to the arrival of the two 
ships in December, Bobadilla remained quietly in Spain, 
Governor of the Indies in name alone. 

Once these vessels were in port, there could be no pre- 
tence that the situation in Hispaniola was not fully compre- 
hended at Court. The Admiral was represented by Balles- 
ter, Barrantes, and Carvajal, — than whom no one was more 
familiar with all that had passed, — while Roldan had his 
appointed emissaries besides the detachment of his followers 
who were returned to Spain under the terms of the capitula- 
tion. The case alleged by the latter against the Admiral 
was, naturally, the most vehemently expressed and generally 
accepted. He and his brothers, they charged, were guilty 
of countless cruel and tyrannical acts against their Castil- 



368 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ian colonists; for any light offence they would hang the 
Spaniards, behead them, flog them, cut off their hands, 
shedding Spanish blood as though they were mortal enemies 
to Castile. Moreover they were traitors to the King and 
Queen, who contemplated seizing the government of the 
Indies and erecting there an empire of their own, for which 
purpose they had forbidden the extraction of any gold except 
under their own licenses, so that they might accumulate all 
the treasure for their own nefarious ends. If anything, the 
accusations brought against Don Bartholomew and Don 
Diego were more intemperate than those against the 
Admiral; the first named, especially, being described as a 
monster in human shape whose one delight was to perse- 
cute and torment the loyal subjects of Castile. To these 
personal accusations were added pessimistic accounts of the 
climate and natural resources of the islands, and heart- 
breaking recitals of the sufferings endured by the colonists 
through the cold-blooded avarice and studied maladminis- 
tration of Columbus and his brothers. The new arrivals 
joined those who had returned home on the five ships of 
the year before in clamoring for the pay they had never 
earned, whenever they could get within earshot of King or 
Queen, and in reviling noisily the name of Columbus when 
his sons passed by. Like any other foul-mouthed and ill- 
conditioned rabble in seasons of discontent, they hung 
around Palace and Government buildings, alternately plead- 
ing and cursing in their efforts to be heard. How much of 
all this was theatrical display we cannot know; that it was 
fostered, if not incited, by the Admiral's enemies there is 
no doubt. That Ferdinand's otherwise not unduly tender 
sensibilities should have been profoundly affected by the 
exhibition of his faithful vassals' distress, and his quick 
sense of justice impressed by their obvious sufferings in his 
cause, is a very pretty story which lacks only the element 
of truth to make it interesting. As a matter of fact, his 
sensibilities were as adjustable to the circumstance of the 
moment as was his justice, and if he allowed the opinion 
to get abroad that he was moved, it was because it suited 
his purpose. The cause of Columbus was prejudged, and 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 369 

the needy adventurers who posed as his "victims" might 
have spared themselves the labor of vituperation for all the 
effect it had upon Ferdinand's decision. 

The Admiral, on his side, submitted his report of the 
rebellion and its causes, substantiating his assertions by the 
oral statements of the loyal and reputable officers whom he 
sent to represent him. He begged their Majesties to exam- 
ine carefully the records of the official investigations which 
he forwarded, and to inquire themselves into their truth 
from the many witnesses who had gone to Spain. After 
describing the constraint under which he acted in signing 
the capitulation with Roldan, he sets forth nine reasons why 
he should be held by their Majesties to be absolved from 
its obligations, and entreats them to declare the agreement 
to be without effect on account of the circumstances by 
which it was extorted. Some of the reasons alleged are 
forcible and well taken; others are frivolous and savor 
strongly of chicane. Taken together and read with refer- 
ence to the time of their production, they illustrate graphi- 
cally the mental attitude of Columbus towards the difficult 
questions which surrounded him. The capitulation should 
be annulled, he claims, (ist) because he was compelled by 
force to sign what the rebels dictated, not what he deemed 
proper; (2nd) because he signed as Viceroy, whereas, 
being on a caravel and at sea, he only had jurisdiction as 
Admiral; (3rd) because, under the trial held by Don Bar- 
tholomew, Roldan and his followers were convicted traitors, 
and neither as Admiral nor Viceroy could Columbus relieve 
a sentence of treason; (4th) because the capitulation re- 
lated, inter alia, to interest of the Royal Treasury, and in 
the absence of the proper Crown officials no engagement 
affecting it was binding; (5th) because passage to Spain 
was granted to all, and those of the rebels who were serv- 
ing out in Hispaniola sentences for crimes committed in 
Spain should have been excepted; (6th) because payment 
was promised to all for the whole period of their residence, 
including the time they were in insurrection; whereas the 
same contract obliged them to make good all losses and 
damages caused by the rebellion, and this the Admiral had 

24 



370 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

no right to remit; (7tli) because they were equally liable 
for the losses occasioned to the Crown through the deser- 
tion of the forty men seduced from the ships of Arafia and 
his colleagues; (8th) because Roldan failed to furnish the 
list of those who had inaugurated the rebellion with him 
and the reasons they alleged, as he was bound to do, in order 
to secure their pardon; (9th) because although Roldan and 
all the other rebels who had come out in the armada of '93 
had sworn by crucifix and Mass before the Admiral and the 
Bishop of Badajoz (Fonseca) to be true and loyal vassals of 
the King and Queen, and to guard their royal estate and 
dignity, all of which oaths were recorded in the books of 
the Comptroller, they had rebelled against the authority of 
the Crown and committed enormous depredations upon its 
property. 

The first and the last reasons were good and sufficient 
for the King and Queen to disavow the act of their Viceroy 
and order the rebels to be chastised as they merited. The 
other seven are cast too much in the mould of the fif- 
teenth century to be openly admitted as valid by the nine- 
teenth, — although our Equity calendars would not be so 
long if we lived up to our professions in this respect. But 
whether forcible or feeble, Columbus might have spared 
his arguments. It was already written that nothing he 
could say or do would turn his sovereigns from their 
elected course. 

As if foreseeing the futility of his appeals, he took advan- 
tage of the occasion to lay before the King and Queen a 
memorial, in which he recounted the history of his enter- 
prise from the time he first laid it before them down to the 
hour of his writing. It is needless to transcribe the greater 
part of it, for its contents are a repetition of what he had 
written elsewhere: but he is entitled to be heard in his own 
defence when he answers the allegations of Roldan' s par- 
tisans. It has so recently been charged, in the interests of 
Historical Criticism, that he studiously concealed from his 
sovereigns all the difficulties he had encountered, with the 
one exception of his failure to secure a revenue, that our 
readers may be willing to know what he really did say. 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 371 

They never will learn it from some whose words will carry 
far more weight than our own. 

After reviewing the events following the foundation of 
Isabella, the revolt of Boil, and Margarite, and the more 
recent rebellion of Roldan, he refers to the benefits he had 
showered upon that "obscure ingrate," and the wealth 
which both Roldan and his partisans had accumulated. 
The loyal and industrious among the colonists, he affirms, 
now that they were acclimated, were beginning to reap the 
rewards of their labors through the abounding fertility of 
the soil. The idle and dissolute, — 

" when they saw that their expectations would not be realized, 
as they had imagined, were ever afterwards possessed of the 
desire to return to Spain. I so arranged that some should go 
with every squadron and, to my sorrow, although they had 
received from me all consideration and proper treatment, as 
soon as they arrived there they said worse things of me than of 
a Moor, without giving any facts but raising against me a thou- 
sand false witnesses, and this has continued until the present 
day. . . . 

" They have alleged over there," he continues, " that I have 
located the settlement at the worst site on the island, whereas 
it is the very best and so proclaimed by all the Indians of His- 
paniola. Many of those who make the charge have never 
gone a gun-shot beyond the palisades of the town, and I know 
not what trust can be placed in them. They said they used to 
die of thirst, when a river flows by the town not so far as from 
Santa Martha in Seville to the river there. They said that the 
place is the most unhealthy of all, when it is the healthiest ; 
although the whole country is the most wholesome under 
heaven and possesses the best water and climate, — as it should, 
— lying in the same latitude as the Canaries, . . . which have 
always been extolled by philosophers for the mildness of their 
climate. . . . They said there were no provisions, and there is 
such a plenty of meat, bread, and fish that on arriving here the 
very peasants who have been brought out as laborers prefer not 
to take the Crown wages but to support themselves and the 
Indians who work for them. This is proved also by this Roldan 
himself who, more than a year ago, started off into the interior 
with 120 men, who took with them over 500 Indians to serve 
them, all of whom have been sustained with great abundance. 
They said that I appropriated the live-stock of people who had 



372 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

brought it here, and I took nothing but 8 pigs from among a 
great many. This I did because they belonged to men who 
were returning to Spain and intended killing them all, which I 
prevented in order that they might increase, but I did not deny 
that they belonged to their owners. Now any one may see that 
the pigs are beyond counting in the island, and all of them 
came from the same breed, which I brought out in the ships and 
cared for at my own expense, — except the first cost which was 
70 maravedies apiece at the Island of Gomera. They say that 
the country around Isabella, where the town is built, was very 
sterile and would not yield wheat, whereas I have harvested it 
and eaten the bread therefrom, . . . although nobody cares any 
longer for wheat-bread, because the native bread is very plenti- 
ful, much better for this climate and is made with less trouble. 

" Of all this they accused me, in defiance of truth, as I have 
said, and all in order that your Majesties should detest both me 
and my enterprise. It would not have been so had its author 
and discoverer been a proselyte, for proselytes are enemies to 
the prosperity of your Majesties and of all Christians ; ^ but they 
spread abroad these reports and endeavored so to manage that 
the whole affair should be a failure ; and I am told that most of 
those who are with Roldan, who is now in arms against me, are 
such proselytes. They blame me because of my administration 
of justice, which I always meted out with so much fear of God 
and of your Majesties, — far more than had the culprits in their 
brutal and loathsome crimes, for which our Lord has imposed 
such burdensome punishments upon the world and of which the 
Justices here possess the records. Countless other falsehoods 
they have repeated concerning me and this country, which, 
nevertheless, it is evident Our Lord bestowed miraculously upon 
us and which is the most fertile and beautiful beneath the sun, 
having gold and copper, all kinds of spices and great quantities 
of brazil-wood, and from which, in slaves alone, the traders tell 
me more than 40 millions of maravedies may be secured each 
year. They give good reasons for this, as the shipments to 
Europe amount to three times as much every year. In this 
country the people who come here can live in all peace, as shall 
soon be apparent, and I believe that, in view of the necessity 

1 In allusion to Bribiesca, Fonseca's lieutenant, who was a converted 
Moor, or Jew. Columbus apparently wishes to imply that had the New 
World been found by Bribiesca, there would have been no occasion 
for all this trouble, for the simple reason that the Indies would never 
have belonged to Spain. 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 373 

prevalent in Spain and the great plenty of Hispaniola, a great 
population will soon come here and that its seat will be at Isa- 
bella, where was the beginning of the colony, for it is the most 
appropriate and best place in the whole region. This we ought 
readily to believe, as Our Lord led me there by a miracle ; for 
such it was, since I could go neither forward nor back with the 
ships, but only land there and unlade them. This has been the 
cause of my writing this letter, for although some shall say that 
it was unnecessary to relate matters which are past and shall 
consider prolix what is in fact so brief, I have thought it was all 
necessary both for your Majesties and for other persons who 
heard the evil reports which have been spread abroad with such 
malice and untruth concerning each of the things I have written 
herein. And these were said not only by those who went from 
here, but even more cruelly by certain individuals who never 
left Spain at all, but who had the means of reaching your Majes- 
ties' ear with their malicious and artful tales, all to do harm to 
me whom they envied, as being but a poor foreigner. Through 
all this, nevertheless, I have been sustained by Him who is Eter- 
nal, who has ever shown mercy to me, great sinner though I be." 

Before closing his letter he makes a final appeal for a 
judicial coadjutor. The colonists knew that he did not 
dare to raise his hand against them to punish them, he 
writes, and that the charges which had been brought against 
him in Spain were believed there. His hands were there- 
fore tied; but he would himself pay the salaries of a judge 
and two counsellors if their Majesties would appoint them. 
Only, he adds, let due heed be given to his prerogatives in 
making the appointments. "I may be in error," he says, 
"but my judgment is that princes should show much coun- 
tenance to their governors as long as they maintain them in 
office, because when they fall into disrepute all is lost." In 
this, at least, Ferdinand and Isabella coincided with him. 
They proposed to remove the governor they were no longer 
disposed to support. 

Whether the King and Queen ever read these last letters 
of Columbus, or heard the declarations of his representa- 
tives, is problematical. The situation of their kingdoms 
was somewhat critical, and Fonseca seems to have had un- 
disputed control of the affairs of the Indies from the time 



374 ^^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Columbus sailed from San Lucar in '98, and to have managed 
them according to his own views. No hint can be found 
that anything the Admiral wrote or his commissioners said 
influenced their Majesties by so much as a hair's-breadth. 
Had he not existed, he could have been no more com- 
pletely ignored than he was during the last half of 1499 and 
the early months of 1500. Contract after contract was 
signed with privateers bound for the Indies, in open disre- 
gard of his rights. Lawsuits were instituted to collect the 
Crown's share of a commerce originated in flagrant violation 
of his exclusive privileges. One after another the solemn 
guarantees of 1493 and 1497 were vacated and cancelled. 
Navarrete publishes a Memorial existing among the Ar- 
chives of the Indies and written in 1500 "amending" the 
concessions which were granted to Columbus as inviolable. 
Some of these elaborately besworn instruments were un- 
ceremoniously rasgados, i.e. torn up; others "altered." 
Suggestively enough the first entry is the "tearing up" of 
the concession to the Admiral of exclusive navigation in the 
Ocean Sea, while the last greatly reduces the share granted 
to him in the profits derived from the lands he should dis- 
cover. Not less suggestive is the fact that these sweeping 
confiscations of his vested rights were the arbitrary acts of 
royal prepotencia ; the seizure by the heavy hand of irre- 
sponsible Might of the property of an unresisting and unin- 
formed absentee. If any consideration could augment the 
atrocious iniquity of the whole transaction, it is that the 
man who was thus boldly robbed by Ferdinand and Isabella 
was their partner and legal ward. Elizabeth's treatment of 
Raleigh was scrupulously honorable by comparison. 

During all this period, from the settlement with Roldan 
in SepteiTiber, '99, to the spring of the succeeding year, 
Columbus was energetically striving to bring order out of 
chaos. Dismissing, regretfully, his plans for the imme- 
diate exploration of the southern continent, he kept Don 
Bartholomew at his side to aid in the work of reorganizing 
the colony. Roldan claimed for himself and his partisans 
the allotment of the fertile lands of Xaragua and the ser- 
vices of King Behechio's subjects. The Admiral, unwilling 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 375 

to concentrate the malcontents in a region so remote from 
his authority, gave them instead allotments in various dis- 
tricts within easier reach of San Domingo and the fortresses. 
To each settler, or group of two or three, he granted the 
services of a cacique and so many Indians, and in many 
instances the grants amounted to little less than the installa- 
tion of one or more of Roldan's ruffians as the proprietor 
of a native village and its plantations of yams and mandioca. 
It has been justly said that this was the beginning of that 
system of organized bondage which, under the names of 
repartimiento and inita, brought such incalculable misery 
upon the native population of Spanish x^merica. But it 
must not be forgotten that the exaction of compulsory 
service from the inhabitants of a newly discovered or 
conquered country, was an essential element in all the pro- 
grammes of territorial extension in that age. There was no 
cruelty intended or anticipated in the mere establishment 
of the system. It was originally intended, in all cases, to 
take the place of tribute. That many of the foulest outrages 
known to history flowed from its application to the native 
races of the New World, was due to the reckless inhu- 
manity of those who first settled it, not to the callousness 
or brutality of those who first incorporated the measure 
into their schemes of administration. Of all the late rebels, 
Roldan, as was natural, fared the best. Upon him were 
bestowed rich and populous lands in the neighborhood of 
Isabella, others in the famous Vega Real,^ and others yet in 
the coveted Xaragua. To him were given some of the small 
herd of cattle imported by the Admiral for breeding pur- 
poses, and, in short, the ex-rebel had only to make a request 
to have it allowed. It was of vital importance for the peace 
of the island that the arch mischief-maker should be bound 
to keep it, even if the chain was of ponderous gold. Hav- 
ing yielded so much to gain his policy, the Admiral was 
not likely to haggle over mere details of material advan- 
tage. He was bent on attaching Roldan to him until final 
instructions should come from Spain, and he succeeded. 

^ Among his serfs, if so we may call them, was that cacique whose 
ears were cut off by Hojeda in '93, as related in Chapter VIII. 



3/6 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Making deduction for a certain air of swagger and bluster 
which the reinstated Chief Justice could not resist the 
pleasure of exhibiting, the Admiral had no more useful 
lieutenant for the next year than his late antagonist. If he 
sometimes exceeded his powers, and assumed somewhat 
arrogantly to make appointments which were the preroga- 
tive of his chief, the latter winked at them and smothered 
the choler natural to his proud spirit. He was biding his 
time, as he had so often done before, and the bread of 
humiliation had lost something of its bitterness by frequent 
use. 

The news of Hojeda's arrival on the coast suggested 
more to the Admiral than a mere infraction of his rights as 
Viceroy of Hispaniola and the Indies. It was imperative 
that he should know the motive and plans of his late fol- 
lower. To ascertain these he promptly sent a couple of 
caravels along the southern coast, towards the west, and 
chose Roldan to conduct the expedition. The latter found 
Hojeda's squadron at anchor in the port of Yaquimo,^ its 
commander with a party of men being ashore cutting brazil- 
wood. As soon as he was notified by Roldan' s presence, 
Hojeda repaired to the anchorage and held an interview. 
To him the visitor was Chief Justice of the island, and 
when he demanded by what authority the strangers were 
on that coast, Hojeda unhesitatingly replied that he would 
exhibit his license as soon as it could be brought from on 
board his ship. He also yielded readily to Roldan' s de- 
mand that the four caravels should report without delay at 
San Domingo, and volunteered the statement that it had 
been his intention, in any case to go and place himself at 
the Admiral's orders, as in duty bound. If Roldan was 
possessed of even a modicum of humor, he must have been 
impressed with this declaration. As it was, he hastened 

1 This is usually referred to by Columbus in his letters as " the Port 
of Brazil," from the quantity of that dye-wood found in the adjacent 
forests. The use of this word as a geographical designation several 
years before the discovery, by Vincent Yanez, of the country afterwards 
called by the same name, is not devoid of interest for the student of 
historical geography. 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 377 

on board Hojeda's vessels and set himself to learn all he 
could. What he heard from his old associates — for there 
were many with Hojeda who, like him, had come out with 
the Admiral in '93 and returned since to Spain — was that 
it was common report at the Court and in Seville, that the 
Admiral was to be deprived of his rank as Viceroy, and that 
the Indies were thrown open to general commerce. Juan 
de la Cosa showed Roldan the license granted Hojeda by 
Bishop Fonseca, and gave him an account of the whole 
voyage, which makes a disagreeably "deadly parallel " with 
Vespucci's later account of his own alleged earlier expedi- 
tion. Possessed of this information Roldan wrote to the 
Admiral, by a native courier, that he had learned much 
more than he dared commit to paper, but would soon be 
with him to relate all. His own two caravels he ordered 
to load with brazil-wood and then return to San Domingo, 
and started himself for Xaragua, supposing that Hojeda 
would in due time sail up the coast to report to the Admiral 
as he had promised. Without following the f 01 tunes of 
these two worthies in detail, we may say that Hojeda, in- 
stead, sailed around to Xaragua and openly proclaimed to 
the few Spanish settlers in that region, that, if they would 
join him, he would lead them against the Admiral and 
extort from him all and more than Roldan had ever pro- 
posed to obtain. This soon reaching the latter' s ears, he 
joined together a body of forty or fifty of his companions 
and other settlers and set out to settle matters with Hojeda. 
For three or four months they negotiated, skirmished, mur- 
dered each other's followers, and marched and counter- 
marched, with alternating success, until Roldan by a simple 
stratagem got Hojeda within his power and exacted terms 
with which his prisoner was forced to comply. Under 
these he left Hispaniola with his four caravels, fairly well 
laden with brazil-wood and slaves, in February or March of 
1500, and made his way back to Spain. ^ 

1 In his account of his alleged 5f<r(7;za' voyage, Vespucci thus refers 
to the incidents above related : " We arrived at the Island of Antillia, 
which Christopher Columbus discovered a few years ago, where we 
remained two months and two days, repairing our rigging and equip- 



378 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Columbus was kept faithfully informed by Roldan of all 
these occurrences. Every week or two native runners were 
sent to the Admiral with reports, and brought back his 
orders. The distance between Xaragua and the centre of 
the island, where the Admiral and Don Bartholomew were 
engaged in making their tour of organization and pacifica- 
tion, was more than three hundred miles, but the Indians 
could cover the distance in four or five days, and thus com- 
munication was both prompt and reliable. When, there- 
fore, Roldan notified him that Hojeda had definitely left 
the coast; but that a certain young cavalier, Guevara by 
name, who, being a cousin of his own ex-lieutenant, Mox- 
ica, had taken part in his recent rebellion, was now 
endeavoring to stir up fresh disorders in Xaragua, Colum- 
bus instantly ordered that he should be expelled from that 
province and assigned to a residence elsewhere. Guevara 
begged to be sent to Cahay, where Moxica was settled, and 
Roldan consented; but instead of going the young man 
remained in Xaragua, which was to him a fool's paradise 
by reason of a love affair he had on hand with the daughter 
of the famous and beautiful chieftainess Anacaona, Either 
because of his disobedience, or because of his loose fashion 
of declaiming against the Admiral and Roldan, or because 
the latter had designs of his own concerning the Indian 
beauty, or for all these motives combined, Roldan was 
much incensed, and formally warned Guevara that the con- 
sequences were likely to be serious if he continued to dis- 
regard the Admiral's orders. Several interviews ensued 
without other result than Roldan summoning his unruly 
partisan to obey his commands under pain of the law, to 
which Guevara responded with such insolent threats that 
he was ordered to leave Xaragua at once and present him- 

ment, and suffering at times many injuries from the Christians who 
were settled there, which I refrain from recounting to avoid prolixity." 
The passage quoted is notable less from the ingenuity with which it 
perverts the truth than from the fact that it contains fhe only allusion 
in all Vespucci's writings of Columbus or his discoveries. In his 
anxiety to economize words, Hojeda's immortal supercargo confined 
his great rival's glory to the finding of the single island of Hayti. 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 379 

self before the Admiral for the latter's sentence upon his 
misdemeanors. To gain time, Guevara begged to be per- 
mitted to wait until Roldan joined the Admiral, and this 
was yielded; whereupon he immediately began to incite 
the other Spaniards to murder Roldan on the ground of 
alleged tyranny. This was reported, as such plots are wont 
to be, to the intended victim, who quickly seized Guevara 
and seven associates, and communicated the whole affair to 
the Admiral, with a request for instructions. The reply 
was, that the prisoners should be sent under guard to San 
Domingo to be tried for their offences. 

Thus far the incident, except for the insubordination of 
Guevara, had not transcended the limits of a personal quar- 
rel. The character of the Spanish settlers in Xaragua, and 
their readiness to listen to Hojeda's treasonable proposals, 
justified the severity shown by Roldan as soon as he found 
Guevara instigating fresh disturbances; but otherwise it is 
fair to suppose that the Chief Justice was mainly influenced 
by a desire to satisfy his own grudge. The matter assumed 
a graver coinplexion when Adrian de Moxica, on hearing 
of the arrest and deportation of his cousin, swore roundly 
that he would take vengeance on Roldan, and scoured the 
Vega drumming up recruits to attempt a rescue. His pop- 
ularity and reputation for daring were such that in a few 
days he had assembled a formidable band of chronic 
malcontents, both on foot and mounted, whose openly 
avowed purpose was to release Guevara, and assassinate both 
Roldan and the Admiral. This came to the latter's ears as 
he was quartered at Fort Conception, in the Vega. For 
once he silenced the whisperings of prudence and chose 
the solution natural to his energetic spirit. Either he was 
Viceroy and Governor General of this island for his King 
and Queen, or it was ruled by every desperado who chose 
to raise the standard of revolt and the old cry of oppression 
by his brothers and himself. Quite apart from the immi- 
nent peril in which he and his colleague stood by reason 
of Moxica' s strength, was the consideration that if he winked 
at this last exhibition of lawless audacity, the very peasants 
in the fields would turn upon him in contempt of his sup- 



38o THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

posed weakness or pusillaminity. If he was ever to reassert 
his authority he must do it now and effectively. He had 
with him but a handful of dependents in whose loyalty he 
could trust, — half a dozen personal attendants, and three 
soldiers, — but with these he determined to make the 
attempt. Setting out at night from Conception with this 
little band, the Admiral marched hastily and stealthily to 
where Moxica was encamped. A sudden charge, a con- 
fused struggle in the darkness, and the rebels fled, leaving 
their leader and some of his adherents prisoners in the 
hands of their uncounted assailants. With equal expedi- 
tion they were hurried back to the fort, interrogated, and 
sentence of death pronounced upon their chief. Protesting 
that he was unfit to die without absolution, one of the few 
priests in the colony, who was stationed at the fort, was 
assigned to hear the doomed man's confession and minis- 
ter the rites of the Church. Instead of applying himself to 
the offices of religion, the culprit sought to occupy the 
priest's attention and gain time. Warned repeatedly of 
the futility of his artifice, he persisted in pursuing it until, 
seeing that his only motive was to prolong the scene in 
hope of a rescue, the Admiral gave orders to end a spectacle 
whose continuation could only result in greater demoraliza- 
tion. Struggling in the hands of his jailers and crying out 
that he had falsely accused many innocent people as being 
his accomplices, the wretched outlaw was swung off from 
the turret to which his halter had been made fast. Follow- 
ing up his advantage, the Admiral seized other ringleaders 
and dealt out a like summary punishment to them, while he 
despatched Don Bartholomew to follow the fugitives into 
Xaragua and bring them to San Domingo for trial. In the 
course of a few weeks the Adelantado had sent to that city 
sixteen prisoners, who were consigned to the dungeon of 
the Admiral's fortified house to await the action of the law. 
He also had hung several of Moxica' s most truculent asso- 
ciates, as fast as he captured them in Xaragua. 

Much has been said, by those who distort his every act, 
of the shocking cruelty displayed by Columbus in these 
proceedings. It is well to recall that Moxica and his fellow 



THE FAITH OF PRINCES. 38 1 

conspirators had entered into a solemn covenant to keep 
the peace only a few months before, in virtue of which they 
had already been pardoned the crime of former rebellion; 
that they speciiically agreed to bear the consequences 
of both their past and renewed misdeeds in the event of 
entering into any fresh conspiracy; and that in this case 
the Admiral had either to yield up his authority and his 
life, or to hold the recreants pitilessly to their voluntarily 
assumed pledge. That Columbus was driven, despite his 
deep-rooted scruples against shedding Castilian blood, to 
execute Moxica and his principal confederates, is the most 
convincing evidence possible as to the imperative necessity 
of his action.^ 

He was only too soon to have an opportunity to defend 
himself. While he was yet in the neighborhood of Con- 
ception, making his final arrangements for the administra- 
tion of the now quiet province, and looking forward to a 
season of uninterrupted peace and the prosecution of his 
long-deferred plans concerning Paria, he received a message 
from Don Diego saying that Don Francisco de Bobadilla 
had arrived at San Domingo, deposed the Admiral, taken 
possession of the government, and proclaimed himself as 
Governor of the Indies. 

1 Las Casas says that he heard the facts, as he narrates them, from 
sundry of the participants when he reached San Domingo about a year 
and a half after they occurred, and that he read " a certain legal 
inquiry, in which many witnesses testified to what I have related." 
This is better evidence than the prejudiced suppositions of later cen- 
turies. 




XIX. 

THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 

ALTHOUGH he had the assertions of Hojeda to pre- 
pare him for some unfriendly demonstration on the 
part of the King and Queen, Columbus could not bring 
himself at first to believe that Bobadilla arrived in any 
capacity other than as the judge whose appointment he had 
solicited so repeatedly. He awaited with impatience the 
receipt of some letter or message of notification from the 
newcomer, and when none came, addressed him a cour- 
teous letter of welcome and congratulation. To this no 
reply was received, and seized with anxious forebodings, 
the Admiral left Conception and moved to the village of 
Bonao, nearer San Domingo, to inform himself of the real 
posture of affairs in that town. 

It seemed to him incredible that the sovereigns should 
propose to invade his clearly defined prerogatives at the 
very moment when he had restored order in the colony, and 
was free to execute those plans for enriching the royal coffers 
which he pursued with such persistent and unfortunate 
loyalty. Just before the news of Bobadilla' s appearance 
reached him, he had prepared a report for transmission to 
Ferdinand and Isabella in which he was able to announce the 
suppression of all armed insurrection among the rebellious 
colonists, and the establishment of peaceful relations with 
the natives. In this document he informs his sovereigns 
that the Indians were so completely pacified that a Spaniard 
could pass alone from one end of the island to the other 
without fear of molestation, and that the island would 
-,82 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 383 

surely yield, without any violent effort being made, a reve- 
nue of sixty millions of maravedies during the current year, 
which the now assured exploitation of the gold mines would 
increase to 120,000 golden pesos by 1503. He also says 
that it is his intention to gather the natives together into 
large settlements, so that they may be more readily con- 
trolled and taught the Christian faith, and affinais that it 
will be easy to bring them to serve the Crown with as much 
loyalty as the inhabitants of Castile, More than this, he 
adds, it is his purpose to despatch Don Bartholomew with- 
out further delay to build a fort on the mainland of Paria, 
and establish a permanent traffic with the people of that 
continent for the pearls they hold so cheap. From their 
great plenty he believes it to be no exaggeration to say that 
their Majesties may expect to derive from such a settlement 
a barrelful of these precious articles each year. With such 
hopes and schemes filling his mind he was little prepared 
for the news which reached him from Don Diego. 

He had, however, heard as yet but an insignificant part 
of what had occurred in San Domingo. As if Fortune had 
decreed that no element of tragedy should be wanting from 
the overthrow of the man she used so capriciously, even 
the circumstances of Bobadilla's arrival involved a cruel 
disappointment for the Admiral. It was early on the 
morning of a Sunday, the 23rd of August, that the inhabi- 
tants of the seaport saw two caravels in the offing trying to 
make the anchorage in the face of the land breeze. Don 
Diego at once conjectured that they were the vessels sent 
from Spain in answer to the Admiral's appeal, and assumed 
that on board one of them was his nephew and namesake, 
the Admiral's older son, whose arrival was even more anx- 
iously expected by his father than the assurances of royal 
approval which he held so dear. To assist the caravels in 
making a speedier entry, and hasten his nephew's arrival, 
Don Diego at once sent out three of his attendants in a 
boat manned by Indian rowers. On reaching the nearest 
vessel the messengers inquired whether Don Diego the 
younger was on board. Bobadilla himself answered the 
hail and said that the Admiral's son was not aboard; but 



384 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

that he, the speaker, had been sent out by their Majesties 
in answer to the Admiral's request, as judge to investi- 
gate and punish the disorders in the island. In reply to 
various questions, the messengers stated that Columbus and 
his brothers had already accomplished this, that in the past 
week seven rebels had been hung in the town, that Guevara 
and four companions were to be hanged very soon, and 
that the Admiral and Don Bartholomew were in the interior 
searching for the few insurgents who had eluded capture, 
and for whom the same fate was reserved. Having thus, 
either maliciously or innocently, put the new governor in 
possession of all he required to know for determining his 
course of action, the messengers returned to land and re- 
ported to Don Diego. Their account created, as might be 
expected, a profound commotion among the townspeople. 
The Admiral's friends foresaw at least a renewal of the old 
intrigues and disputes, while his ill-wishers — and they 
were in the great majority — hailed the prospect of airing 
their grievances afresh. As soon as wind and tide per- 
mitted the vessels to anchor near the landing place, the 
citizens swarmed out to them, bent on making friends with 
the new judge and drawing their own conclusions as to the 
best manner of setting their individual sails. Bobadilla had 
no difiFiculty in extracting all the information he wanted 
from the obsequious throng without betraying his own inten- 
tions, and pleading some excuse for not landing that day, 
he announced his intention of publicly proclaiming his 
commission in the city church the next morning at the 
conclusion of Mass. The sight of two gallows with a couple 
of corpses dangling from them, plainly visible from his 
decks, may have given him food for more protracted 
reflection. 

The absence of any conciliatory or even formal commu- 
nication from Bobadilla was ample indication to Don Diego 
that trouble was brewing. As governor of the city and 
delegate for the Admiral he was entitled to expect the ob- 
servance of that punctilious etiquette which forms so large 
a part of Spanish official intercourse. Taking counsel with 
Rodrigo Perez, the mayor, and Miguel Diaz, commandant 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 38$ 

of the fortress, he decided to leave the initiative with 
Bobadilla, and act as circumstances demanded. It was 
with no light heart that he and his small body of devoted 
adherents entered the crowded church on the following 
morning. Bobadilla arrived with a retinue of brand-new 
officials and a formidable body-guard. The service was 
disposed of with as much or as little reverence as the preva- 
lent excitement allowed, and the whole congregation ad- 
journed to before the church doors, the usual place for the 
promulgation of official acts. Calling upon the notary who 
accompanied him, Bobadilla caused to be read the commis- 
sion issued to him in May of the previous year, in which 
he was appointed judge of the island, with special reference 
to the disorders reported by the Admiral. There was noth- 
ing in this to alarm Don Diego, and when, the reading 
terminated, Bobadilla summoned him as the Admiral's 
representative to deliver up the prisoners lying under sen- 
tence of death, together with all the papers in their cases, 
preparatory to the opening of a new trial, Don Diego was 
able to reply with unassailable logic that this exceeded his 
powers, since the authority of his brother, as Viceroy, was 
supreme in the island; but that he would instantly submit 
the whole question to him if Bobadilla would favor him 
with transcripts of his commission. To this the new judge 
answered that if Don Diego had no power to act he had no 
need of a transcript, and betook himself back to his ships. 
The next morning the church was again crowded, upon the 
probability of a renewal of the contest between the rival 
officials. At the end of the Mass Bobadilla again demanded 
the attention of the throng, and caused to be read the second 
royal commission given him, in which he was appointed 
Governor of the Indies. This done, and a formal certifi- 
cate thereof signed by the notary, Bobadilla repeated his 
summons of the day before. Don Diego, showing a front 
which proved him to be made of the same metal as his 
brothers, responded that he gladly acknowledged the force 
of any royal decree, and would assuredly respect its man- 
dates, but that he could not deliver up his prisoners except 
with the approval of the Viceroy, whose powers must 

25 



386 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

necessarily be supreme since they were perpetual and un- 
conditioned. To him the whole subject would be referred, 
and he would promptly act as was best for their Majesties' 
interests. Seeing that this determined but respectful stand 
was making an impression upon the crowd, Bobadilla de- 
cided to show his whole hand. He directed the notary to 
read the third warrant, issued by the King and Queen the year 
before, wherein the Admiral and his brothers were specifi- 
cally called upon to deliver up the royal fortresses and 
property to the new governor, and to yield him implicit obedi- 
ence. In order to win over the colonists more completely to 
his side, he also caused to be read a codicil, dated in May 
of the current year, 1500, authorizing Bobadilla to pay all 
arrears of salary and wages, whether due by the Crown or 
by the Admiral, out of the revenues of the island, in prefer- 
ence to any other expenditure " in such manner that the 
people shall receive all that they are entitled to and may 
have no cause for complaint." As this was one of their 
main grievances against Columbus, — albeit his inability to 
pay them was due wholly to their own rebellious acts, — the 
populace instantly saw that they were likely to gain far 
more from the complaisance of this new ruler than they 
had from the sturdy justice of the Viceroy, and received 
the royal decrees with extravagant acclamations. So far 
as San Domingo was concerned, Bobadilla had won the 
day, and there was little reason to doubt that the rest of the 
island would receive him with equal enthusiasm. 

Once more the demand was made for the surrender of 
Guevara and his companions, and again Don Diego replied 
as before. To this Bobadilla answered that he would take 
them by force, and forthwith marched his command to the 
fortress. This was held by Miguel Diaz, Garay's associate 
in the discovery of the Bonao goldfields and a loyal officer 
of the Admiral. In reply to Bobadilla' s summons he 
appeared between the turrets of the edifice and paid cere- 
monious attention to the reading of the royal decrees. 
This finished, and a formal demand made for the delivery 
of the fortress and its prisoners, the doughty captain in his 
turn asked for copies of the documents, alleging that he 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 387 

held his ward for the King and Queen under commission 
from the Admiral, his master, who had discovered and sub- 
dued these lands, and that when his superior ordered he 
would do all required by him. Seeing that there was but 
small chance of overpersuading such obdurate loyalty, Boba- 
dilla sent to the ships for all his armed followers and his 
sailors, and called upon the multitude to arm themselves 
and join him in the reduction of the stronghold. Nothing 
loth, the citizens hastened to his support, protesting that 
if there were one thing they desired more ardently than 
another it was to show their cheerful obedience to the 
royal authority. With this formidable array, Bobadilla 
returned to the fortress late in the day, and repeated his 
demand that the doors should be thrown open. Miguel 
Diaz at once stepped out on the walls, accompanied by 
Diego de Alvarado, one of the Admiral's secretaries, both 
holding their naked swords in their hands, and declared 
that he had no recourse except to reaffirm what he had said 
earlier in the day. Without further parley the new governor 
ordered an assault to be made upon the place; scaling 
ladders were run up against the walls, and a heavy timber 
brought to bear against the door. Under this furious 
onslaught the doors yielded, and the attacking party found 
itself face to face with Diaz and Alvarado, now standing in 
passive protest at the entrance of the building. Bobadilla 
at once sent for the prisoners, and after asking them a few 
questions turned them over to his own constable. There 
being nothing more to do, he dismissed the mob, left a guard 
in the fortress and returned to his vessels. The authority 
of the Viceroy was at an end. 

These drastic measures were but the prelude to what was to 
follow. The new governor, recognizing the justice, under 
the Spanish laws, of the claim for evidence of his authority 
made by both Don Diego and Miguel Diaz, now had formal 
copies of the decrees made, and despatched an officer, bear- 
ing the wand of justice, into the interior with them for the 
information of the Admiral, Don Bartholomew, Roldan, 
and the colonists at large. To Roldan he wrote a letter 
promising substantial advantages if he quickly recognized 



388 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the new authority. To the Admiral and his brother he 
neither wrote nor sent a word. When the messenger reached 
the Admiral in Bonao and presented his notification, the 
Admiral declined to admit the interpretation claimed for it 
by Bobadilla. He was Viceroy and Perpetual Governor 
General of the islands, he averred, and no decree could 
displace him. The intention of these present ones was 
only to constitute Bobadilla judge and governor in so far 
as the administration of justice was involved. In assertion 
of his right, he formally summoned the messenger and all 
others present to render him continued obedience as Vice- 
roy and Governor in all that concerned the general inter- 
ests, and to recognize the authority of Bobadilla in all that 
related to judicial matters. In doing this, Columbus was 
acting well within his legal rights. To have done less 
would have been to abdicate his rank, title, and preroga- 
tives, and seriously impaired the value of his subsequent 
protests. The powers given Bobadilla were invested with 
none of the extraordinary solemnities attending the issuance 
of the Admiral's patents, and for him to have yielded to 
them at the first demand would have been tantamount to a 
confession that his own chartered rights rested on no more 
secure tenure than the caprice of his sovereigns. In employ- 
ing the means he did to safeguard these, he implied no 
disrespect to his sovereigns, their mandates or their com- 
missioner. It is as unreasonable to expect him to have 
done otherwise as it would have been suicidal for him to 
let Bobadilla' s curt announcement pass without remon- 
strance. As yet he had only partial information of what 
had occurred in San Domingo, and after his recent experi- 
ences with Roldan and Hojeda,- — to say nothing of his 
recollections of Boil, Margarite, and Aguado, — he could 
not suffer a summary demand for his acquiescence in his 
own deposition to become effective through his failure to 
expostulate. 

No time was lost by the messenger in advising the new 
governor of the position taken by the Admiral. Knowing 
his devotion to the Church and its ministers, Bobadilla 
immediately sent a Franciscan friar, accompanied by Velas- 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 389 

quez, the newly appointed royal treasurer, into Bonao with 
the brief letter from the King and Queen to Columbus 
which they had written at the time of signing the decrees.^ 
By the time they reached him the Admiral was in posses- 
sion of more detailed information from his brother as to 
the governor's proceedings, and was better able to appreci- 
ate the extent of the dispositions made for his overthrow. 
The conversations he held with the Franciscan and Velas- 
quez convinced him that any attempt to maintain his own 
authority would be worse than futile. He accordingly 
decided to accompany them back to San Domingo, and 
thence sail for Spain to lay his protest before Ferdinand 
and Isabella. Sending couriers to Don Bartholomew and 
Roldan, who were still in Xaragua, he set out to meet his 
latest rival in the town which had so lately been the capital 
of the world he had given to Spain. 

Even with all the lessons of the past to darken his antici- 
pations of the immediate future, Columbus could not have 
imagined a condition of affairs approaching the reality. 
Using as a pretext his unwillingness to put himself at once 
in Bobadilla's power, the latter had taken possession of the 
Admiral's residence, seized his books, papers, maps, and 
journals, appropriated his personal treasure of gold, jewels, 
plate, and rare curiosities, and the horses in his stables. 
To gain still further the approbation of the colonists, he 
announced that this was done in order to provide in part 
for the payment of the wages due the ill-treated settlers. 
He followed up this act of brigandage by proclaiming the 
abolition of the tithes due the Crown upon all the products 
of the colony, and the removal of all restrictions, for twenty 
years, upon the free mining of gold. Hereafter the col- 
onists were only to pay the royal treasury the one-eleventh 
part of the precious metal secured, instead of the third as 
before. These concessions were obviously aimed at the 
strict, not to say harsh, control which Columbus had invari- 
ably exercised over the mining privileges, — as he was in 
duty bound, — but they were not needed to convince the 
people of the complete and ignominious collapse of their 
1 See p. 304, ante. 



390 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

late Viceroy's rule. Roldan and his colleagues in their 
moments of wildest excess had always maintained some 
semblance of respect for the finder and founder of the new 
empire; they could never altogether lose sight of his pre- 
eminent deeds and persistent defiance of difficulties. But 
this new man showed no more concern for the Admiral and 
Viceroy than if the latter had been one of the crop-eared 
convicts who was serving his time on the island, and quickly 
taking their cue from him, the worthy colonists vied with 
one another in urging the governor to heap fresh affronts 
upon his luckless predecessor. Yielding — not reluctantly 
— to their persistent clamor, Bobadilla set on foot an in- 
vestigation of their charges against Columbus. This he 
assumed, or pretended, he was authorized to do by the text 
of his appointment as Judge, and in order to remove all 
possibility of constraint on the part of intending witnesses, 
he announced that the testimony would be taken in secret. 
We may imagine the glow of joyous exultation with which 
this prospect was greeted by the scores of vagabonds, par- 
doned rebels, and worthless rascals of all sorts, who had felt 
the hardships of strictly enforced discipline or the pains 
of merited punishment at the hands of the Admiral, his 
brothers, or his delegates. In their eagerness to vent their 
malignity, they ignored the first requirement of credible 
evidence, and, by placing no control upon their foul tongues, 
produced such a mass of black besmirchment, that the 
Admiral's most venomous enemy could not have put faith in 
their allegations. That Bobadilla allowed them to run on 
unchecked, reflects as little credit on his perspicacity as on 
his sense of decency, and we must turn to the records of the 
then recently established Inquisition itself for a parallel to 
this parody of justice. 

Harking back to the dark days which followed the settle- 
ment of Isabella, seven years before, the "witnesses" 
rehashed all the charges brought against Columbus by 
Bernal Diaz de Pisa, Fray Boil, and Aguado. He inten- 
tionally starved his colonists, they swore; compelled the 
sick and fever-stricken wretches to labor at the hardest 
kinds of tasks; scourged them mercilessly when they filched 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 391 

a handful of wheat to stay the pangs of hunger; and hanged 
those who dared to leave the camp in search of the necessary 
food he refused them. He also hanged "many " Spaniards 
for other trifling misdeeds, and especial emphasis was laid 
upon his prodigal waste of Castilian blood. To the horror 
of the pious and godly men who were now swearing away 
his life, he would not permit the clergy to baptize the 
Indians eti masse, his evident purpose being to retain them 
in heathenism so as to sell them for slaves.^ Although all the 
perjured scamps who testified had a quarrel against him 
because he refused them all the slaves they wished to hold, 
they accused him of stirring up revolts among the Indians, 
and then "unjustly " enslaving them for shipment to Spain. 
He purposely withheld licenses to work the gold mines, 
they declared, so as to hide the real wealth of the island 
from Ferdinand and Isabella, with intent to make a trea- 
sonable bargain with some other monarch. Of his rank 
and perverse cruelty in connection with the insurrection 
of Moxica they could not say enough. Finally, they swore 
that the real reason he had not come instantly into San 
Domingo and submitted to the new governor, was because 
he was collecting the Indians together with the intention 
of attacking the city and forcing Bobadilla to return to 
Spain. What they testified of the Admiral they repeated 
of his brothers, and when their depositions were combined 
there was material enough to hang a regiment of such arrant 
traitors as these Genoese. 

The governor professed to believe all this mass of vicious 
contradictions. His first step was to arrest Don Diego, 
clap chains about his ankles, and confine him on board one 
of the caravels in the harbor. This done, he awaited the 
arrival of the Admiral, who was daily expected. As soon 
as he reached the town, Columbus went to the government- 

1 Even Las Casas, whose proudest title was " Defender of the 
Indians," says that Columbus would have committed " a great sacri- 
lege " had he allowed the sacrament of baptism to be conferred on 
the natives without sufficient preparation. If he was satisfied that the 
Admiral's conduct in this respect was orthodox, we may safely assume 
as much. 



392 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

house, or "palace," where Bobadilla had taken up his resi- 
dence. He found the governor surrounded by his staff and 
obsequious attendants. Without permitting the Admiral 
to say a word, or himself vouchsafing one in explanation, 
Bobadilla called upon the bystanders to seize him and 
ordered him to be placed in irons. To their credit, not a 
man moved. Despite all that malice could invent and 
shamelessness assert, this gray-haired sailor was Viceroy of 
the Indies, discoverer of the new world', and grandee of 
Spain. They might be willing to plot against him, lie about 
him, and seek his downfall for their own advantage; but 
between that and treating him as only the vilest malefactor 
was treated lay a gulf they had not the brazen effrontery to 
cross. The deadly quiet which fell on the assemblage was 
broken by the advance of one of the Admiral's former cooks, 
Espinosa by name, who volunteered to perform the infamous 
service. Offering no resistance to an outrage whose very 
magnitude benumbed his powers of speech and reason, the 
Admiral was shackled and led at once to the fortress, where 
he was placed in solitary confinement, with strict injunc- 
tions to his jailers that no one should visit or converse with 
him. Within a day or two Bobadilla sent to demand that 
he write to Don Bartholomew, summoning him to San 
Domingo and warning him under no circumstances to 
touch a hair of the prisoners who were in his power in 
Xaragua. To refuse the order was to subject his brother 
to a worse fate than had befallen himself, and the Admiral 
hastened to send a letter to the Adelantado, counselling him 
to obey the governor's mandate with alacrity, warning him 
of the lot which certainly was in store for him, but adjuring 
him not to attempt to resist it since they would both go to 
Castile where their Majesties could not fail to avenge their 
wrongs. Don Bartholomew, stifling the natural suggestions 
of his nature, complied with this appeal as speedily as the 
distance allowed, and upon arriving at San Domingo was 
instantly fettered and sent on board the caravel to join 
Don Diego. The abject position of the once all-powerful 
brothers afforded an opportunity for the venting of the 
popular hatred which was too rare to be lost. This took the 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 393 

form of opprobrious pasquinades and verses, which were 
shouted through the streets and placarded at the corners. 
A successful mob is apt to be much the same all the world 
over, and in their hour of triumph the graceless adventurers 
of Hispaniola wallowed in the mire of their own shame with 
all the complacency of their kind. One crowning spectacle 
was reserved for their delectation, when the wan and broken 
Admiral was taken from the fortress, and sent on board the 
caravel which held his brothers. To see the man, who, as 
delegate of their King and Queen, had only four short weeks 
before ruled the western half of the known world, marched 
to the beach between his guards, and shipped on board a 
vessel to cross in chains the Ocean over which he had exer- 
cised the lofty rank of Admiral, was indeed a precious 
boon, and many there were to enjoy it. It is not surpris- 
ing that when Bobadilla's deputy, Alonso de Vallejo, entered 
the cell where he was confined, Columbus should suppose 
that he came to announce his execution. " Where are you 
taking me, Vallejo?" he inquired. "Your Worship is 
going aboard ship to set sail," was the response. "Is that 
the truth, Vallejo? " queried again his prisoner. " I swear 
by the life of your Worship that we are going to embark," 
reiterated the officer. Columbus knew his jailer to be a 
man of honor, and believed him. Dismissing his own 
apprehensions, he accepted his fate with dignity, confident 
that in Spain he would receive justice. 

The two caravels which carried Columbus and his brothers 
were the same that had brought out Bobadilla and his 
retinue. They left the harbor of San Domingo early in 
October under the command of Vallejo, who was especially 
charged by Bobadilla to deliver the three prisoners, ironed 
as they were, to Bishop Fonseca immediately upon reach- 
ing Cadiz. Vallejo, although he showed throughout the 
voyage a respectful and sympathetic anxiety to alleviate the 
distress of his illustrious captives, was chosen by the gov- 
ernor on account of his close relations with Fonseca. Both 
in this and in the instructions just quoted, the action of 
Bobadilla furnishes strong evidence that his whole proceed- 
ing was but the fulfilment of a deliberate programme con- 



394 



THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 



certed before his departure for Hispaniola. To what 
extent Ferdinand and Isabella were cognizant of it, or 
how it was possible for Fonseca to assume to perpetrate so 
wanton and daring an outrage without their consent, is as 
yet a mystery. All the responsibility was ultimately thrown 
on Bobadilla, and charged to his mistaken zeal and excess 
of powers; but if the King and Queen were ignorant of his 
intentions and plans he is to be credited with a degree of 
audacious independence absolutely without parallel in the 
records of Castilian government. 

Columbus himself did not suspect the loyalty of his sov- 
ereigns. Without pretending to comprehend the details 
of the plot, or the causes which rendered possible its suc- 
cess, he attributed his downfall to the machinations of his 
powerful enemies at Court. That they had impressed, to 
a certain extent, the King and Queen with their allegations 
he could not question; but he permitted no doubt to dis- 
turb the confidence with which he looked forward to their 
prompt repudiation of Bobadilla' s acts and his own imme- 
diate restoration to his rank and dignities. That he had 
trodden for the last time the soil of Hispaniola as its Gov- 
ernor, issued his last orders as her Viceroy, and planned 
his last scheme of improvement and administration for her 
colony, never crossed his mind. There was bitterness 
enough and to spare in the reflections which crowded upon 
him as the vessel slowly bore him, a shackled felon, along 
the beautiful southern coast of the lordly island. Every 
headland spoke of an ambition blighted, every bay of a 
righteous purpose thwarted, every distant mountain peak 
of the defeat of some cherished plan of further exploration. 
Past Cape Engaiio, Saona, and Mona; past the noble bulk of 
Porto Rico; across the stormless sea studded with the grand 
array of towering islands which bore the names he had 
conferred upon them, when they were seen for the first time 
by Christian eyes; and so on to the crowning splendors of 
Guadalupe and Dominique, the little caravels held their 
way. For 700 miles they had to sail, before the broken- 
hearted man upon their decks could look out over the blue 
waters without seeing some tangible evidence of the great 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 



395 



deeds he had done. Only when the hazy outlines of the 
last of the Caribs' islands had sunk from view was Colum- 
bus free from the associations of his achievements, — and 
even then he had about him that Ocean Sea whose first 
Admiral he had been. With what a poignant sting must his 
mind have reverted to that swelling verse of Seneca's, of 
which he had made such proud use in earlier days, when 
he claimed so boldly to be able to "break the bonds of 
Ocean " if he had but three small ships! He had now but 
to stir a foot, and the clank of iron preached a whole homily 
on the vanity of life. What a mockery the whole thing 
was, at best. The acclamations of the simple islanders 
of Guanahani, who saw in his bearded followers the 
messengers of Heaven; the vivas of the crowded street, 
in Seville and Barcelona; the studied attentions of King, 
Queen, and Court; the victories over heathen warriors 
and Christian rebels in Hispaniola; the persistent battle 
with, and final conquest of , disease, starvation, and danger; 
the voyages into the unknown South; the adding of an 
empire to the possessions of his sovereigns, — what did 
all these amount to? The fetters on his ankles weighed far 
more. 

"If my grievance against the world is a new one, its 
fashion of maltreating mankind is old." So did Columbus 
open the letter in which he made his protest against his 
bonds. It was addressed neither to King nor Queen, but 
to Doiia Juana de la Torres, sister of that Antonio de Torres 
who had so often commanded the squadrons bound to or 
from the Indies. The choice of his correspondent was due 
to her intimate relations with Queen Isabella, and to his 
confidence in her effective use of his communication. His 
latest appeals to their Majesties in person had been an- 
swered by the appointment of Bobadilla, and it is not 
strange that in seeking another method of approaching 
them he used the influential friendship of the Torres family. 
The customs of the Court were not unknown to him. What 
he might write to Doiia Juana could reach the Queen's 
hands without the knowledge of Fonseca or other enemies. 
Once before the Queen, he trusted to his simple appeal to 



396 THE LAST VOYAGES OE THE ADMIRAL. 

revive her recollections of his services and her sense of 
justice. 

" I came with such devoted affection to serve these Princes," 
he writes, " and have served them with a devotion the equal of 
which has never been seen or heard of. Our Lord has made me 
the messenger of that new heaven and new earth of which he 
spolce by St. John in the Apocalypse and by the mouth of 
Isaiah, and has shown me where to find it. Among all others 
there was skepticism, but to the Queen, my sovereign Lady, He 
gave the spirit of comprehension and great courage, making her 
the inheritor of it all as though she were His beloved and cher- 
ished daughter. I went to take possession of all this in her 
royal name. . . . Seven years were passed in discussing this 
enterprise and nine in its performance, during which time deeds 
were done of signal excellence and worthy of all remembrance. 
Of their extent no one can form an idea. I returned, and I do 
not hesitate to say that there is no one so low that he does not 
plan to insult me. The world looks upon him as virtuous who 
is not willing to do the same. If I had stolen the Indies, or the 
continent which lies in front of them (about which there is now 
some talk at the seat of St. Peter) ^ and given them to the 
Moors, I could not be shown in all Spain any one so unfriendly 
to me as is the Queen. Who could have supposed this where 
always such magnanimity has been shown ? " 

The allusion to the change of feeling apparent in the 
Queen naturally raises the question of Ferdinand's motives 
for misjudging him. 

" I thought that this recent voyage to Paria would reconcile 
him somewhat by reason of the discovery of pearls, and also 
the finding of the new gold mines in Hispaniola. I left orders 
with the natives to gather together the pearls and to fish for 
more and agreed to return and get them later on : in my belief 
they would have secured a bushel of them. If I did not write 
this to their Majesties, it is because I wished to have the same 
amount of gold gathered before informing them, but this resulted 
as have so many other things. If I had sought my own advan- 
tage and allowed Hispaniola to be ruined, or if my privileges 
and contracts had been respected, I should have lost neither 
those treasures nor my honor.'' 

1 Alluding, apparently, to the proposed Bull extending the Spanish 
jurisdiction to the mainland discovered by Columbus and explored by 
Hojeda, Pinzon, Guerra, etc. The passage is obscure. 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 397 

He then recites his conflicts with the insurgent Indians, 
Roldan, Hojeda, and Moxica. Speaking of the hanging of 
the latter, he writes : — 

" I had determined not to touch a hair of any one's head, but 
this man, akhough it cost me tears, it was impossible to spare as 
I had intended. To my own brother I should not have done 
otherwise, had he proposed to murder me and wrest from me 
the government which my King and Queen had entrusted to my 
charge." 

Referring to the arrival of Bobadilla, he gives a summary 
of his own attitude on learning of it: — 

" Six months before, I was already prepared to go to their 
Majesties with the good tidings of the finding of the new mines 
and to escape from governing such abandoned people, who fear 
neither God nor King nor Queen, and are full of strife and evil 
deeds. I was ready to pay them off with 600,000 maravedies, 
for which I had 4,000,000 due me from the tithes, and more, 
without counting the third part of the gold. Before leaving 
Spain I begged their Majesties many times to send out, at my 
expense, some one who should be charged with the administra- 
tion of justice, and after I learned of the Judge's rebellion I 
asked yet again either for some additional men, or at the least for 
some servant of the royal household with letters of authority, — 
for my own credit is such that although I should build churches 
and hospitals, they would always be called dens of thieves. At 
length their Majesties acted, but in a way very opposite to that 
demanded by the situation. Let it pass, since it is as they wish. 
I was out there [in Hispaniola] for two years without being able 
to secure a single provision in favor of myself or of the people 
who went there, but this new man brought a chest full of them. 
... If their Majesties should be pleased to disprove a report 
which is common among those familiar with my trials, — that 
greater harm has been done me by the evil tongues of men than 
my long service in augmenting their glory and royal estate has 
been able to shield me from, — it would be a charity and I would 
be restored to my rank. Matters were at this point when the 
Commander Bobadilla ^ arrived at San Domingo. I was in the 
Vega and the Adelantado in Xaragua, where this Adrian de 
Moxica had made headway at first ; but everything was now 

1 He was Commendador or K.C. of the military Order of Calatrava. 



398 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

quiet, the country prosperous and peace reigning. The second 
day after his arrival lie proclaimed himself Governor, named his 
officers, and exercised authority ; declared the remission of tithes 
and taxes on gold as well as on everything else for 20 years, — 
which, as I have said, is for a man's lifetime, — announced that 
he had come to pay everybody, although the people had not up 
to that time performed their duty ; and openly asserted that he 
was going to send me and my brothers away in chains, as he has 
done, and that neither I nor any of my race should ever return ; 
besides saying a thousand other indecent and unmannerly things 
about me. All this he did on the second day of his presence, 
I being absent and knowing nothing either of him or of his 
coming. Moreover, he took a number of their Majesties' letters, 
of which he had a large quantity signed in blank, and sent them 
to Roldan and his followers filled out with privileges and allot- 
ments of Indians. To me he sent neither letter nor messenger, 
nor has he done so until this day. Let your Excellency reflect : 
what would any one who was in my position think of such a 
proceeding, — honoring and rewarding him who had striven to 
deprive their Majesties of their possessions and had done so 
much damage and harm, and humiliating him who had, at the 
cost of such sacrifices, defended it all? When I learned of this, 
I supposed that it would be only another case like that of Hojeda, 
or one of the others who followed him ; I was relieved when I 
heard from the priests that their Majesties had indeed sent him 
out. I wrote him that his coming was at a fortunate time ; that 
I was already disposed to go to Spain, and had ordered an 
auction of all I had ; that he should not be hasty in proclaiming 
these remissions ; that I would deliver over to him the adminis- 
tration and government as smooth as the palm of my hand ; and 
I wrote the same to the priests who were with him. Neither he 
nor they replied a word ; instead, he assumed a warlike tone, 
and bestowed rewards upon all who went to the town and swore 
allegiance to him as Governor, — for twenty years, they told me. 
As soon as I heard of this affair of the remissions, I thought to 
correct a mistake so grave, and that he would be pleased, for he 
had granted them without reason or necessity, giving to idle 
vagabonds a boon too great even for respectable settlers who 
had their wives and children with them. Therefore I published 
both by speech and by letters that he could not make such use 
of his powers, because mine were the more authoritative ; and I 
reminded the people of the remissions offered by Juan Aguado. 
All this I did to gain time, so that their Majesties might receive 
news of the real state of the island and should have cause to 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 399 

send out such orders concerning it as should be for their interests. 
It is, in truth, idie to proclaim such remissions in the Indies. 
For those settlers who have received their locations, it is worth- 
less ; they were given the best lands, which, by the end of their 
four years of service, will be worth 200,000 maravedies at the 
least, without their owners striking a pick into them. . . . I had 
arranged with these settlers that they should pay the third of the 
gold extracted and the tithes on other products ; this 1 did at 
their own solicitation and they looked upon it as an act of great 
liberality on the part of their Majesties. When I heard that 
they were neglecting the payment I called them to account, and 
they supposed that he [Bobadilla] would act as I did ; but it 
happened contrariwise. He incited them against me, saying 
that I wished to take from them what their Majesties were willing 
they should keep, and he tried to throw me on my back. This 
he did, and then proposed that the settlers should write to their 
Majesties praying that they would not reinstate me in my office, 
— and so pray I, both for myself and for all belonging to me, as 
long as there is not another population. Besides this, he ar- 
ranged with them for investigations of such baseness that Hell 
itself never knew of their equal. Our Lord, who succored Daniel 
and the three children with such might and wisdom and such an 
exhibition of power, can, if he so pleases, release me with his 
will alone. I myself would have known how to remedy both 
this and all the rest which has been mentioned or which has 
occurred since I came to the Indies, if my conscience had allowed 
me to seek my own advantage and it had been honorable for me 
to do so. But the duty of maintaining justice and adding to the 
dominions of their Majesties up to this time holds me fast. Yet 
now so much gold is being found that there is a difference of 
opinion as to whether the greater profit lies in going on a plun- 
dering expedition, or going to the mines. For a woman 100 
ducats are as freely given as for a plantation, and the thing is 
common. There are many dealers who make a business of buy- 
ing young Indian girls ; all ages bring a good price. 

" I repeat that, in saying that Bobadilla had no power to grant 
remissions, I was doing just what he wanted me to do, although 
my only object was to gain time for their Majesties to hear from 
the island and send again to direct what they deemed best. I 
repeat, that the influence of the misrepresentations of those 
I thwarted has done me more harm than my services have 
availed me for good — an evil precedent this, both for the present 
and the future. I swear that a great number of men have gone 
to the Indies who do not deserve a cup of water at the hands of 
either God or man, and now they propose to go back. Boba- 



400 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

dilla set them all against me, and he appears from his actions 
and manner to have come out already disposed and eager for 
this ; at least it is said that he spent much in order to come out 
on this mission ; I do not know any more than I hear. I have 
never heard before of an investigator going to the rebels and 
taking their evidence as witnesses against him who ruled them, 
and so with others entitled to no credence and unworthy of it. 
If their Majesties should send and hold a general investigation, 
I declare to you that they will be astonished that the island does 
not sink [beneath its weight of iniquity] . 

'' Your Excellency shall remember, I am sure, that when the 
tempest drove me into Lisbon without sails, I was falsely accused 
of having gone there to deliver the Indies over to the King [of 
Portugal] . Later on their Majesties knew the truth, and that 
it was all said from malice. Ignorant as I may be, I do not 
know of any one who considers me so dull that I do not realize 
that, even if the Indies were my own property, I could not retain 
them without the aid of some Prince. If this be so, where could 
I find greater support and certainty of not being cast from them 
than with the King and Queen our sovereigns, who have raised 
me from nothing to so great honor, and who are the most 
puissant monarchs both by land and sea in the whole world? 
Their Majesties know how I have served them, and will respect 
my privileges and grants ; and if any one should infringe them 
their Majesties will restore them to me with increase, — as was 
done at the time of Juan Aguado, — and will command that 
much honor be shown me. As I have just said, their Majesties 
have received benefits at my hands and have my sons among 
their attendants, and this condition of affairs could not obtain 
with any other Prince, for where no love is all else fails. 

" I have related how I wrote to the friars and set out at once 
entirely alone, both because most of my people were with the 
Adelantado, and in order to disarm any suspicion he [Boba- 
dilla] might have. As soon as he heard of this he seized Don 
Diego and sent him, loaded with irons, on board a caravel. As 
soon as I arrived, he did the same, and afterwards, when the 
Adelantado arrived, treated him in like manner. I neither held 
further converse with him, nor did he permit any one to speak 
with me, to the present day ; and I solemnly swear that I cannot 
imagine why I was arrested. ... I have been deeply wronged 
in that an inquisitor has been sent out against me who is assured 
that if the report he makes about me is very serious he will 
remain as Governor in my stead. Would that it had been Our 
Lord's will that their Majesties had sent him or some one else 
two years ago ; because I know that I should now be free from 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 40 1 

reproach and calumny, and my honor should neither have been 
taken from me nor would I have lost it. God is just and will 
sooner or later make known why and how this was done. 

" The news of the gold which I said above I would relate are, 
that on Christmas Day [1499], ^ being in great distress, set 
upon by the rebellious Christians and Indians and on the point 
of abandoning everything and escaping, if possible, with my 
life. Our Lord comforted me miraculously, and said : ' Courage ! 
do not fear or lose heart. I will remedy all. The seven years 
of the golden period are not yet passed, and in this and in the 
other matter I will give you relief.' That same day I learned of 
80 leagues of territory throughout all of which there were mines 
of gold. The opinion concerning them now is that it is all one 
mine. Some men have collected 120 ducats in one day, others 
90, and even 250 have been found. With some from 50 to 70, 
and with many from 20 to 50 are considered a good day's yield, 
and many are continuing to gain this. The most ordinary return 
is from 6 to 12, and whoever secures less than this is not satis- 
fied. These mines appear also to be like those others, which do 
not yield the same each day ; but both the mines and the miners 
are new. The general opinion is that even if all Spain were to 
go there the most ignorant person could gather not less than 
one or two ducats, even when all is so new. To be sure, this 
is done by those who have an Indian to help them, but the 
matter depends on the Christian. See what kind of judgment 
Bobadilla showed in giving up everything for nothing, and 
abandoning 4,000,000 of maravedies in tithes, without cause or 
necessity, and without first consulting their Majesties. And this 
is not the only harm that has been done. 

" I know that my errors have not been committed for the pur- 
pose of doing evil, and I believe that their Majesties are con- 
vinced that this is true. I see and know that even toward 
those who intentionally injure them they show clemency, and 
therefore feel well assured that they will show far greater and 
more generous forgiveness toward me, who have fallen into 
mistake through ignorance and the force of circumstances, of 
which I am the victim, as they shall learn abundantly hereafter ; 
and that they will regard my labors and realize each day how 
they have been benefited thereby. They will weigh the whole 
matter in the scales, as we are told in the Holy Scriptures the 
good and the evil shall be weighed at the Judgment Day. If, 
however, they direct that some one else shall judge me, — which 
I do not anticipate, — and that this be done by a report obtained 
from the Indies, most humbly do I entreat them to send there 

26 



402 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

two persons of integrity and reputation, at my cost, who shall 
very easily discover that 5 marks of gold can be found in 4 
hours : whether they do this or not, it is very needful that some 
provision be made in the premises. 

"As soon as the Commander arrived at San Domingo he 
took up his quarters in my house, and treated everything he 
found as belonging to himself. Let it pass ; perhaps he needed 
it ! Nevertheless, never did pirate thus treat merchant whom 
he had seized. I have the greatest grievance against him by 
reason of my writings, all of which he took in the same manner, 
so that I have never been able to secure a single one ; and those 
which would be of the most advantage in my defence are the 
ones he has hidden away the most carefully. Behold what a 
righteous and honest Judge ! . . . God, Our Lord, is over all 
with His power and wisdom, as always ; He punishes all offences, 
and especially the injuries committed by the ungrateful." 

Whether Columbus wrote this letter on board the caravel, 
as some affirm, or immediately upon reaching Cadiz, as 
others think, is not material. A rough draft of it, in his 
handwriting,-^ which is in existence, seems to indicate that 
it was at least prepared during the passage, although it may 
have been written out and expanded when he arrived in 
Spain. As it stands, it is his defence against the outrages 
perpetrated by Bobadilla and the too great readiness of 
Ferdinand and Isabella to give heed to the allegations of 
the Admiral's enemies. Disconnected and often obscure, 
to a degree unusual even in his hastiest productions, it 
reflects the mental stress to which he had been subjected, 
and the agitation with which he looked forward to meeting 
his sovereigns. His modern accusers see in it the evi- 
dences of a "much-vexed conscience," charge him wath 
deliberate misrepresentation, and with an "aberration of 
mind" resulting from his "besetting cupidity." They 

1 This draft is notable by reason of two personal statements. Colum- 
bus therein speaks of having " lost my youth " in the enterprise of the 
Indies, and of having " left wife and sons " to prosecute it. The first 
allusion is incompatible with the generally accepted theory as to his 
advanced age, and the second to the equally common assumption that 
his connection with Dofia Beatriz de Enriquez was illicit. We have 
elsewhere given our reasons for believing him to have been younger 
than most historians assume, and for considering his relations with 
Dona Beatriz as quasi regular, as viewed by his contemporaries. 



THE TRIUMPH OF INTRIGUE. 



403 



reproach him with the glaring inconsistency between his 
demand to be judged as the commander of a conquered 
province, and his enthusiastic laudations in his first letters 
of the pacific and amiable disposition of the Indians. If 
it were worth while to treat seriously a Criticism whose car- 
dinal principle is a determined ignoring of the fact that 
the world moves, and that human development is not un- 
varying in all ages and under all conditions, we might 
dispute this proposition. But the letter, read in the light 
of its origin and circumstances, speaks for itself, with all 
its transparent artifices, its sincerity of purpose, and its 
sense of helplessness. The man who wrote it was, most 
assuredly, not the man of 1492. He "knew his world" as 
he had never known it before. If he had lost his illusions 
concerning the Edenic guilelessness of the inhabitants of 
his new world, he had fared no better in his estimate of 
"the King and Queen, our sovereigns." He had learned 
that all his high hopes, — his fantastic dreams, if you so 
please,— -about the destiny of these wonderful lands, were 
subordinated by his royal master, if not by the Queen as 
well, to the practical question, — How much revenue will 
your new world yield us? 

The two caravels arrived at Cadiz on the 25 th of Novem- 
ber. The Court was at Granada, deeply engaged with the 
subjugation of the rebellious Moors. Vallejo lost no time 
in reporting his arrival to Ferdinand and Isabella, and 
even stretched his sympathy for the Admiral so far as to 
permit the latter' s letters to reach Granada before Boba- 
dilla's official despatches. The news that " their Admiral " 
had been sent to Spain in a felon's chains is supposed to 
have grievously wounded the sensibilities of both monarchs; 
perhaps the courageous intervention of Doiia Juana Torres, 
and their own quick realization that Bobadilla had gone 
too far, were more nearly the true moving cause. At all 
events, the King and Queen instantly despatched orders 
that Columbus and his brothers should be released from 
confinement, directed that they should come immediately 
to Granada, and sent him a large sum of money to travel 
in a state becoming his dignities. Verily the ways of 
princes are past fathoming. 



XX. 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 



IN that same city of Granada where, eight years before, 
Columbus had entered into his partnership with Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella for the discovery and acquisition of the 
unknown lands he maintained would be found beyond the 
Western Ocean, he now knelt before the same monarchs 
and pointed to the chains their deputy had fastened upon 
him in the Empire he had given to Spain. That his forti- 
tude should have deserted him at the last moment, and sobs 
for a time prevented the ceremonious utterances due from 
him to his sovereigns, is not surprising; that they should 
likewise have shown some emotion at the sight of such a 
servant in such a plight, saves to their memory the benefit 
of a doubt concerning their participation in Bobadilla's 
excesses. Assisting him to rise, the King and Queen, with 
extreme affability, entered upon the easy task of satisfying 
the Admiral that his wrongs had their indignant sympathy, 
and that generous and speedy restitution should be made 
him for all his sufferings. He in turn entered upon a 
defence — doubtless both prolix and confused — of his 
course, protesting that his single aim had ever been to 
augment their glory and extend their dominions, and that 
his errors, where such had been committed, had their origin 
only in a devoted zeal for their service. This they were as 
ready to believe as he to accept their assurances of con- 
tinued affection and confidence, and the painful interview 
ended in a restoration of, at least, apparent cordiality. It 
was sincere on the Admiral's part, for he had a childish 
404 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 405 

faith in his royal patrons. Isabella, too, was no doubt in 
earnest, with a mental reservation as to her intentions 
regarding the future government of the Western World. 
Ferdinand, not wholly shameless, may have regretted the 
manner in which his selfish disregard of the Admiral's rights 
had been executed, but did not swerve for a moment from 
the policy he had adopted. Bent upon breaking the author- 
ity of Columbus and cancelling his rights, the King felt a 
merely passing compassion for the consequences to his 
victim. If the latter was blind enough to trust him still, 
so much the better. 

Columbus and his brothers left the royal presence as free 
men after this audience of the 17th of December, 1500. 
That and some partial provision for his pecuniary needs 
were the immediate extent of the royal grace. Despoiled 
of rank and estate, thrust aside as a broken tool for which 
no further use could be found, the Admiral of the Ocean 
Sea and Viceroy of the Indies found himself occupying the 
pitiful position of a needy suppliant at a Court where he 
was considered little better than an encumbrance. The 
very magnitude and unassailable justice of his demands 
made them the more irksome to those who had wronged 
him, while the dogged persistence with which he maintained 
his rights compelled an attention both their Majesties and 
their officers would fain have refused. Driven to choose 
between final repudiation of his claims and diplomatic pro- 
crastination, they preferred the latter as more congenial to 
their scheme of policy. Nothing was simpler than to put 
off with smooth assurances this credulous explorer, and such 
were lavished upon him without stint. Believing firmly, 
as he did, in the sincerity of his sovereigns, and possessed 
of overwhelming evidence as to the soundness of his pre- 
tensions, Columbus awaited the royal verdict with a patience 
born of long familiarity with the ways of the Court. If 
he had not now the influence needful to obtain a speedy 
recognition of his position, he did not doubt the certainty of 
ultimate success, and prosecuted his cause with untiring 
solicitude. 

Had he reached Spain six months earlier, or six months 



406 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

later, Columbus might have received a consideration more 
befitting his transcendent services than was in fact accorded 
him. Arriving toward the end of the year 1500, he was 
but one explorer the more returning from the Indies, one 
whose tale of discovery was two years old, and was backed 
by no great tokens of success. The idle and curious of 
Cadiz and Seville had that year surfeited on stories of 
adventures beyond the Ocean Sea. Guerra had sailed into 
port in April with his huge store of pearls from the coasts 
of Paria; Hojeda had followed in June with his cargo of 
slaves; Lepe was only a few days behind him with his 
account of a voyage of hundreds of leagues along the shores 
of the new continent; Vincente Yaiiez Pinzon returned in 
September, bringing the report of still further wanderings 
below the Equator, and of the finding of the gigantic 
Amazon. All these were far more tangible and stirring 
achievements to the vulgar mind than was the mere finding 
of the southern continent two years before. That the later 
exploits would never have been undertaken but for the 
Admiral's lead; that to the discoverer belongs a glory 
greater than that awarded to all his imitators combined, 
were reflections little likely to disturb the burghers and 
merchants of Andalusia. They were as keen as any modern 
politician to realize when a former hero became a '' back 
number," and to his lost prestige at Court Columbus had 
now to add the loss of popular interest. The newer men 
jostled him out of the public's memory until he was to all, 
save a very limited circle, only another and earlier finder 
of western islands. Almost any man who could sail a 
caravel might claim to be as much. 

There is between the applause of the multitude and the 
appreciation of the wise a difference like that which lies 
between a blinding winter gale in the " roaring forties " and 
the flow of the Trades over a moonlit sea between the 
Tropics. Columbus knew the distinction and prized the 
less boisterous and more enduring fame. Possessed of a 
quiet and immovable faith in the final verdict of the Future 
upon his deeds, he was never distressed by the defection 
of the mob's opinion. Apart from his tenacious assertion 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 407 

that the performances of his imitators were a gross infrac- 
tion of his vested privileges, he did not make any protest 
against the credit they derived therefrom : on the contrary, 
he quickly saw how their more extensive local explorations 
might serve to further his own larger plans of world-inves- 
tigation. But there had been two voyages made during his 
absence from Spain which struck at the very foundation of 
his fame as an explorer. Sebastian Cabot, for the English, 
had crossed again the northern seas in 1498, and run down 
the shores of a great continent lying north of Cuba; and 
Vasco da Gama, for the Portuguese, had successfully doubled 
Good Hope and returned, in July, 1499, with the glory of 
having found an eastern route for the coveted Spice Islands 
and India. If, on the one hand, Hojeda, Pinzon, and 
their compeers had proved beyond all cavil the incalculable 
importance of his own lately discovered southern continent, 
on the other, Cabot and da Gama threatened to shut off 
Spain from farther acquisition in the North and in the 
remoter West. To have his grandiose schemes of universal 
western exploration thus reduced to the dimensions of the 
parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude already 
partly covered, was to crush them almost in embryo. Here 
was food for deep study and meditation, and matter which 
transcended in immediate interest even the absorbing 
question of his assaulted prerogatives. 

When we recall the feverish ardor with which the great 
powers of our day wrangled and disputed in Berlin a few 
years ago over the partition of the African wilderness,-' we 
may feel in some degree the impatience with which Colum- 
bus learned, day by day, of the encroachment of rival 
leaders upon the vast regions he looked upon as being 
almost his own by right of discovery. That he was deal- 

1 By the bye : might not the explosive virtue of the modern critics 
of Columbus be more practically employed in arousing the indignation 
of Christendom against some of the gross injustices perpetrated against 
the Africans in later days? Or is the good old American plea, that the 
color of their skin bars their standing in court, still a sufficient reason 
for turning our backs on their imminent wrongs and venting our anath- 
emas on the lost bones of the mediaeval sinner instead? 



408 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ing, in these thoughts, with a full one-half of the Earth's 
surface, did not impress him as extravagant. There had 
been no second half to the globe until he had demonstrated 
the fact. Whether one continent or more bounded the 
Western Ocean was not germane to the question at issue : 
all that lay beyond the line marked by the Holy Father 
belonged to Spain until, in sailing ever into the West, the 
old India of the Greeks and Romans should be reached. 
If Cabot had found land within those precincts, albeit forty 
degrees farther north than Guanahani, he was a trespasser. 
If Vasco da Gama, in sailing eastward around the Cape, 
had found a means of ultimately reaching Cuba and Paria 
from that side of the world, he threatened to turn the glory 
of Spain to the advantage of Portugal. To checkmate these 
promising projects of the rivals of Castile, and preserve the 
monopoly of the New World, in its largest sense, to the 
Crown of Ferdinand and Isabella, became now the absorb- 
ing problem with the man they had so ruthlessly degraded. 
Verily there was some quality in this man other than that 
one of slave-selling, which he shared with our own fathers. 
If he was a "speculator," his game was a hemisphere; if 
he indulged in "hallucinations," they were of bestowing 
continents upon his King and Queen; if he was a "pri- 
vateer," his ventures put those of Alexander to shame. To 
hold him up as devoured with vanity of rank and consumed 
by avarice for ducats, is to wilfully reverse the lenses of 
history. Because he vigorously claimed his own in lesser 
things, is no reason why we should shut our eyes to the 
splendor of his life's aim. Had he been covetous of wealth 
he could have had it as few before or since. Where a 
Guerra succeeded in obtaining pearls by the basketful, it 
is not likely that he need have failed. The royal charters 
defined and secured to him his proportion of the returns. 
It was not his business to collect them, but to carry 
out his life's-work of bringing the western half of the 
world under the dominion of his sovereigns. Having 
broken down the barrier, he could not stand idly by 
while others rushed in to seize the fruits of his daring 
sagacity. 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 



409 



As he became more familiar with the results of the 
voyages which had followed his discovery of Paria, Colum- 
bus gradually formed a new theory, destined to exert a last- 
ing influence on the history of the western hemisphere. 
From Cape St. Augustine, on the coast of the modern Brazil, 
clear around to and beyond the Gulf of Venezuela, the 
contour of the great southern continent was now known. 
In the North, Cabot had traced a coast line extending from 
the lands of ice and snow down almost to the latitude of 
Cuba. How many of the details of this English explora- 
tion were accessible to Columbus we do not know; it is 
certain that he would encounter no difficulty in informing 
himself minutely as to the explorations of the Spanish 
voyagers. His own discoveries filled in the blank be- 
tween the end of Cabot's exploration and the Tiorthern 
coasts of Terra Firma as far as the point reached by Ho- 
jeda. What lay west of Cuba and the Gulf of Venezuela 
was, as yet, a mystery, and upon this problem his attention 
was concentrated. North of Cuba an unbroken continent 
extended; south of Paria another had been skirted to far 
below the Equator. Between the two lay an unexplored 
region of island-studded ocean. To this region Columbus 
now applied the physical observations he had recorded in 
discussing the location of the Earthly Paradise, supple- 
mented by the reports of his imitators. The vast flow of 
fresh water from the Gulf of Paria rushed through the 
iDragon's Mouth and then turned westward along the shores 
of Terra Firma. The immeasurable outpouring of the great 
river Amazon, lately discovered by Pinzon, turned north- 
ward and followed a similar course. All the ocean currents 
between the Caribs' islands had a like set, and so did that 
which flowed between these and the mainland. So power- 
ful was this westward drift along the shores of Hayti, that 
he had been wearied in fighting it on both the northern 
and the southern coasts. As long ago as 1493, Dr. Chanca 
had written that almost as much time had been expended 
in beating against this current from Navidad eastward to 
Monte Christi as had been occupied in the voyage from 
Spain. The direction of the steadfast prevailing winds was 



4IO THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

also to the west, and the general east-and-vvest lay of the 
islands pointed to a long persistence of the corroding 
agency of the ocean acting always on the same lines. The 
straightaway line of the lately explored northern shores of 
the new continent reinforced this view. Ignorant of the 
insular character of Cuba, and of the existence of the mighty 
Gulf Stream, which, hurrying by its northern shores, dis- 
charges back into the Atlantic the inflow of these westerly 
currents, Columbus connected all of these indications with 
the discoveries of Cabot and da Gama. Since the Western 
Ocean was barred to the north by Cabot's land and to the 
south by his own Parian continent, and since da Gama had 
at least partially defined the immense extension of the 
ocean east of Africa, why should not the westward-flowing 
waters of* the Atlantic find their way into those eastern seas 
through some strait which separated the two continents of 
the Western World? Were such the case, — and nothing 
that was known militated against the theory, — the control 
of that passage would give Spain an inestimable advantage 
in the long struggle for the Orient's commerce, besides 
securing for her an easy access to all sides of her new 
southern continent. In all this argument Columbus still 
clung to the belief that Cuba and the tountry to the north 
of it formed together the easternmost parts of Asia. What 
the southern land was, if not the Earthly Paradise, no man 
could conjecture. To its discoverer it was "the infinite 
land." The known world was a far different affair in the 
beginning of 1501 from what it had been when he last 
sailed from Cadiz in 1498. Then, it was what Ptolemy and 
Marco Polo alleged it to be, plus his own additions to 
their knowledge. Now, the waste places of ocean were 
fast filling with the rudely sketched outlines of conti- 
nental masses, and the realm of mystery was shifted from 
the Western Ocean to the regions which lay between the 
new-found hemisphere and the ancient kingdoms of the 
East. Yet we are soberly invited to consider the man 
whose work this was as a driveling visionary, consumed 
with vanity, and having no loftier ambition than the 
acquisition of an income larger than his neighbor's. 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 4I I 

The Admiral laid his latest project before the King and 
Queen sometime during the summer of 1501. He would 
sail to the south of Hayti and Cuba, leaving the now ascer- 
tained coast of the new continent untouched, and hold a 
westerly course in the expectation of finding an ocean pas- 
sage between Asia, as he considered the " lands seen by the 
Englishmen," and his own more southerly continent. This 
would, he believed, bring him sooner or later — and rather 
sooner than later — to the mouths of the Ganges, the Spice 
Islands, and the Red Sea. It was the dream of the Cuban 
voyage in 1494 revived and expanded in the light of later 
and fuller experience. For this purpose he asked for a 
small fleet of his favorite caravels, — well-armed, of light 
draught, and fast sailing. The voyage was to be one for 
exploration only, and he had abundant reason to dread a 
needless accumulation of human lumber, so the number of 
his companions was to be no greater than absolutely neces- 
sary. He wished his brother, Don Bartholomew, to ac- 
company him, both for his nautical skill and his military 
prowess. Finally, as he expected to eventually reach the 
scene of the recent Portuguese exploits in the remote East, 
he asked for royal letters commending him to the servants 
of that Crown, as well as for others to the Great Khan and 
the lesser oriental potentates. In this he was directly 
recurring to the projects which he cherished on his first 
voyage in 1492. Then, as now, he anticipated reaching the 
Courts of Asia. He had learned that they lay farther to 
the west than he at first thought; but he still considered 
Cuba and Hayti as lying at the threshold of their domin- 
ions. It was only a question of a greater distance than he 
had before supposed. 

To all his proposals Ferdinand and Isabella yielded a 
ready acquiescence. At one stroke to rid themselves of an 
importunate suitor, whose mere presence constituted a keen 
reproach, and, at the same time, to secure the services of 
the most skilful and intrepid navigator of the age in thwart- 
ing the schemes of England and Portgual, was, to use the 
Spanish phrase, "laying gold on purple velvet." Sharing 
his impatience to despatch the new expedition as promptly 



412 THE LAST VOYAGES OE THE ADMIRAL. 

as possible, they solemnly repledged their kingly honor, — 
or what was left of it, — to do him rigid and generous jus- 
tice in the matter of his reclamations against the Crown. 
If aught befell him on this voyage, they promised that Don 
Diego, as his oldest son and heir, should inherit intact all 
his father's dignities and emoluments. Such promises are 
proverbially of facile birth, but other circumstances besides 
his abiding faith in the King and Queen disposed Colum- 
bus to accept them just now. From all quarters came news 
of fresh voyages and explorations. Caspar Cortereal, acting 
for Portugal, had followed Cabot's lead, and pushed his 
discoveries far up towards the Arctic Circle. Cabral, in 
the service of the same Crown, sailing ostensibly for India 
by da Gama's route, had been driven so far to the west that 
he had come upon land nearly one thousand miles below 
the farthest southing of Lepe.^ Bastidas and Juan de la 
Cosa had undertaken a fresh adventure Paria-wards. Ho- 
jeda was organizing a second expedition to seize and 
colonize the region of Coquibacoa, around the Gulf of 
Venezuela, having received the appointment of Governor 
thereto from their Majesties of Spain. Pinzon had under 
way a similar scheme for annexing the countries about the 
mouth of the Amazon, also by virtue of his nomination as 
Governor thereof. Other contracts had been executed 
between the Crown and individuals looking to trafficking 
ventures along the coasts of the southern continent, and it 
was obvious that so long as they shared the profits from these, 
Ferdinand and Isabella proposed to authorize them and to 
establish local "governments" without further reference to 
their agreements with the Admiral. If the latter delayed 
much longer in Spain, he would lose his prestige as mariner 
as well as his earlier titles and emoluments. 

1 We have always felt skeptical about the " accidental " nature of 
Cabral's discovery of Brazil. It would be almost too much for human 
nature for the King of Portugal to continue hearing of the Spanish 
exploits in the West, and not try a hazard at finding some land in that 
quarter for himself, on the chance that it might lie far enough towards 
the East to come within his side of the Papal demarcation. 

Pinzon discovered Brazil on January 20, for Spain; Cabral on 
April 22, for Portugal. 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 



413 



The immediate preparation of his fleet was retarded by 
an event which constituted the most complete vindication 
of the Admiral's much-reviled conduct in Hispaniola. 
Their investigation of the rabid and multitudinous charges 
brought against him ended by convincing the King and 
Queen, that, in all the important issues, Columbus was right, 
and Bobadilla, Roldan, and the Court cabal wrong. To 
reinstate him as Viceroy formed no more a part of their 
policy than did the revocation of the trading and colonizing 
licenses granted in violation of his rights; but they saw that 
his administration of Hispaniola, if faulty in minor details, 
had resulted in the pacification of the colony, the control 
of the native tribes, and the establishment of a secure basis 
for future prosperity. They realized that the great mass of 
accusations laid against him was frivolous or worse, and 
that he had, in fact, discharged his ofifice as Viceroy in the 
manner likeliest to redound to the advantage of the Crown, 
due regard being had for the complex difficulties surround- 
ing him, and the unpromising material he had to use. For 
the injustice done him their Catholic Majesties would make 
him, if he and they lived long enough, just such compensa- 
tion as they could persuade him to accept. Meanwhile the 
administration of a Bobadilla meant utter ruin to the colony, 
and the permanent loss of the great revenue, which, despite 
the denials of the Admiral's enemies, their Majesties were 
satisfied the island would produce. To reap the returns 
they anticipated, now more firmly than ever, from their new 
dominions, and exercise a firm control over the jarring 
interests sure to arise in the increasing activity of rival 
enterprises, Ferdinand and Isabella determined to establish 
a permanent government for the Indies at San Domingo, 
and place at its head an administrator of tried capacity, 
who was free from all connection with the disputes of the 
stormy past. For this office their choice fell upon Don 
Nicholas de Ovando, afterwards Grand Commander of the 
great military Order of Alcantara, a man eminent alike for 
his character and ability. Assigning to him the same rank 
of Judge and Governor with which Bobadilla had been 
invested, they avoided technically an abrogation of the 



414 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ofifice of Viceroy conferred upon Columbus while stripping 
the latter of the active Governorship to which he was 
equally entitled. To Ovando was assigned a stately retinue 
of personal attendants, as well as a complete executive per- 
sonnel. As if in derisive refutation of the dolorous plaints 
concerning the unhealthfulness and poverty of Hispaniola 
brought against Columbus, no less than 2500 persons, — 
"for the most part men of quality," Las Casas says, — 
enlisted with the new Governor for service in the colony.^ 
An armada of thirty or thirty-two vessels was requisitioned 
for their transportation, and the preparations for its sail- 
ing absorbed the resources and energies of the Andalusian 
seaports. 

If the extreme popularity of the expedition was an implied 
endorsement of the Admiral's consistent representations as 
to the advantages of Hispaniola for colonization, the instruc- 
tions given to Ovando yet more emphatically supported 
the defence made by him in answer to the attacks of his 
enemies. In the first place, the new Governor was to sum- 
marily depose Bobadilla, and send him to Spain by the 
returning fleet. The customary formal injunctions were 
expressed regarding the natives; they were to be well treated, 
and assured of the amiable intentions of the Spaniards in 
their respect. They were to continue, nevertheless, to pay 
the tribute and taxes established by the Admiral to the ex- 
tent of one half of all the gold or other metals they found, 
and were to serve the Spaniards as before, receiving a 
stipend for their labor. As to the colonists themselves, all 
who had taken part in the revolts of Roldan and Moxica 
were to be sent back to Spain together wuth all Bobadilla's 
own followers. The exemption from the gold tax pro- 
claimed by Bobadilla was revoked, and the Admiral's orders 
re-affirmed. Certain gifts of horses and cattle from the 
royal corrals made by Bobadilla were disallowed, and the 
property acquired by the latter during his residence on 
the island was confiscated. All converted Jews and Moors 
in the colony, — the "proselytes" of the Admiral's letter to 

^ Las Casas himself visited the Indies on this occasion for the first 
time. 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 415 

Dona Juana de Torres, — were ordered to leave the island. 
The allotments of land made by the Admiral were to be 
respected, and his recommendations touching the building 
of certain additional fortresses, and the establishment of 
other towns, were adopted. The Church tithes were to be 
collected from settlers and Indians alike, and the dissolute 
life of the colonists, against which Columbus had so earn- 
estly inveighed, was to be corrected by the dispatch of a 
dozen priests charged with the moral reformation of the 
colony. His plea for the settlement in the island of honest 
Spanish families was also attended to, and provision made 
for the emigration of married couples. In short, all that 
he had declared essential for the welfare of the colony was 
done. In one important matter only did the King and 
Queen differ from him : his proposals regarding the whole- 
sale shipment of slaves to Europe was not acted upon. All 
natives who accepted unresistingly the Spanish regime were 
to be treated as the other vassals of the Crown; those who 
resisted were to be dealt with at the Governor's discretion. 
As if to purposely deprive their action of any humanitarian 
complexion, their Majesties suggested that the lack of 
laborers in Hispaniola might be profitably supplied by the 
importation of negro slaves from Africa. They had no 
objections to slavery as such, but preferred using some- 
body's else vassals for the purpose.^ 

Having thus indirectly approved the Admiral's official 
course, their Majesties took action upon his merely pecu- 
niary wrongs. They gave Ovando a detailed instruction 

^ On the 30th of October, 1503, Queen Isabella by her personal act 
(Ferdinand not sharing it on account of absence) formally decreed that 
all " the Cannibals who should resist and refuse to receive and admit 
into their countries the captains and people sent by me to make such 
voyages, and should refuse to hear them in order to be instructed in the 
mysteries of our holy Catholic faith, and to remain in my service and 
under my dominion, may be captured and taken to the other islands 
and countries, and brought to these my own kingdoms and estates, 
or to any other places or localities which are deemed convenient or 
desirable, and may be sold and utilized, the part which belongs to us 
being duly paid to us," etc. 



41 6 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

concerning the redress due Columbus for the spoliations 
committed upon his personal estate by Bobadilla, and the 
damage inflicted by the recision of their agreements with 
him, so far as Hispaniola was concerned. The new Gov- 
ernor was to credit the Admiral with one-eighth of the net 
profits of all merchandise sold in the island for account of 
the Crown; to allow one-tenth of the income derived from 
all sources, after deducting his share of outlays, salaries, 
etc., — the exemption granted in 1497 from his proportion 
of certain expenses being reafifirmed; to set apart one -tenth 
of the live-stock for his account; to pay to his representative 
the sums due from "farming out" certain offices, and from 
certain perquisites accruing from ship-dues, etc. ; to allow 
him III hundredweight of brazil-wood annually in lieu of 
ten per cent upon the whole amount cut; and to permit his 
agent to verify the amount of gold received at the royal 
mint, and collect his share therefrom. Finally, the Gov- 
ernor was to see that punctual restitution was made of all 
property taken by Bobadilla from Columbus and his brothers, 
or that compensation was made wherever restitution was 
impracticable. The mere recital of these effects shows the 
extent of Bobadilla's rapacity, or petty spite: clothing, 
household furniture and ornaments, provisions, wine, mares 
and their colts, money, jewels, Indian curios, books, 
manuscripts, maps, and, — not least, — "the stones from 
which the gold grows, which are partly made of gold."^ 
To see that his interests were hereafter more equitably 
guarded, Columbus was permitted to name a fiscal, or 
agent, and Alonzo Sanchez de Carvajal, his choice, was 
commanded to Ovando's friendly attentions. 

Either because he realized that, for the present at least, 

1 The theory held by Columbus and contemporaries concerning the 
origin of gold was that it grew from the ores containing it. He had 
accumulated a quantity of gold-bearing stones in which the metal was 
plainly visible, and laid them aside to abide the time when each frag- 
ment of rock would " grow " into solid gold, and their confiscation by 
Bobadilla was doubly irksome, for scientific and material reasons. The 
writer has had the same theory elaborately expounded to him by old 
miners in the more remote parts of South America, who cached gold- 
streaked rocks for the same purpose. 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 417 

no further concession could be obtained from Ferdinand or 
Isabella, or because he was content to defer for a season 
the adjudication of his larger claims while he pursued his 
new undertaking, the Admiral accepted without protect the 
partial amends offered him by the Crown. There is nothing 
of record to indicate that the nomination of Ovando and 
the elaborate resources placed at his disposal wounded his 
susceptibilities or aroused his opposition. The Governor's 
commission ran only for two years; he was charged espe- 
cially with the execution of the measures advocated by the 
Admiral; he was going to supplant Bobadilla as unceremo- 
niously as the latter had displaced his predecessor; and was 
to a certain extent made the guardian of the Admiral'^ 
property and vested interests in Hispaniola. Columbus 
knew that this was virtually a victory and an endorsement 
for himself; he possessed and believed their Majesties' 
renewed assurances that exact justice would be finally done, 
and fresh honors bestowed upon him; and, without yield- 
ing a hair's-breadth of his ground, he was satisfied to let 
Ovando fulfil his mission, while he himself carried out his 
own latest project. The frequent licenses being granted for 
individual voyages, and the granting of executive powers to 
Hojeda and Pinzon on the shores of Terra Firma, more 
nearly concerned his privileges than did the special service 
entrusted to Ovando. All of his material interests in His- 
paniola were now recognized and safeguarded, and the 
matter of his official prerogatives in that colony would be 
settled in due course, while both his dignities and his 
emoluments were assailed in the course being pursued with 
regard to Paria and its adjoining coasts. Being of less 
immediate moment, however, these infractions of his rights 
could await ulterior remedy. His formal protests and 
demands were before their Majesties, and he had received 
enough acknowledgment of their cogency to satisfy him of 
their final allowance. This we conceive to have been the 
true attitude of Columbus at this juncture. His correspon- 
dence, at that season, bears us out. 

Ovando received his formal instructions in September; 
but, notwithstanding extraordinary efforts were made to 

27 



41 8 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

hasten his departure, five months passed before he was 
ready to sail. In the meantime the Admiral's exploring 
squadron could not be fitted out, and, apart from such 
assistance as he could render the new Governor in the way 
of counsel and information, he was measurably master of 
his time. There is some evidence that during the first 
months succeeding his return to Spain he was straitened 
for means, and it is apparently to this period that he re- 
ferred, in writing from Jamaica the following year, when 
he said : " So little have twenty years of service availed me, 
that at this day I have not a roof to call my own in Spain. 
If I wish to eat or sleep, I have no place other than the 
public table or an inn, and, for the most part, have not 
enough to pay the scot." Pending the decision in his favor 
which was incorporated in the instructions given to 
Ovando, Columbus had no standing with the officials of 
the Castilian treasury, and they were not likely to discount 
the future to his advantage. Any sums of money received 
by him during those months must have been either in the 
nature of a royal largess or of loans contracted by himself. 
We do not think that his poverty was other than relative. 
It is true that he landed in Spain more than a pauper; but 
he had wealthy and influential friends, and the habits of 
the times permitted borrowing without imposing loss of 
personal dignity thereby. His own phrase need not imply 
necessarily abject want, and the only color given to the as- 
sumed existence of the latter is a letter attributed to a Vene- 
tian envoy which might easily be exaggerated from national 
prejudices. It is certain that with the publication of 
Ovando's instructions, and the acceptance of the Admiral's 
own plans of exploration, all cause for lack of reasonable 
resources would disappear, for his relations were always 
close with the prominent Italian merchants, of whom many 
were settled in Seville and Cadiz. It relieves the King and 
Queen of no part of their responsibility that their Admiral's 
necessities were probably of brief duration. That he should 
have been even momentarily embarrassed, is only another 
indication of the innate selfishness of their natures and 
policy. The ducats they advanced for Ovando's resplen- 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 



419 



dent wardrobe ^ would have tided Columbus over his season 
of distress. 

The time passed rapidly enough for the waiting Admiral. 
He found abundant occupation in preparing his petitions 
and memorials; in soliciting the support of his friends; in 
completing the records and charts of his last discoveries; 
in familiarizing himself with the results of the many voy- 
ages undertaken in his two years of absence, and in matur- 
ing his plans for his approaching exploration. Among other 
projects he proposed the construction of a new type of 
vessels for his voyage;- the ordinary caravels, even when 
rigged with lateen-sails, were not adapted to the naviga- 
tion of the western seas. But in this he was discouraged 
by their Majesties, who urged the need of an early de- 
parture, and the length of time required to build the new 
ships. 

One other subject absorbed much of his attention. 
A close student for many years of the Scriptures, and of the 
patristic literature based upon them, he continued the train 
of reflection to which he had dedicated so much time after 
the discovery of Paria. Doubtless the same ideas had filled 
his mind during the long weeks of his recent mournful 
voyage across the Atlantic, and to them he now wedded his 
earlier speculations concerning the recovery of the Holy 
Sepulchre. If his new voyage resulted as he hoped, a way 
would be opened for that enterprise, independent of all 
need of cooperation from the other Powers of Christendom. 
In a letter written in February to the Pope, he had already 
dwelt upon this scheme. Speaking of Hispaniola he said : 
"This island is Tarsis, is Cethia, is Ophir, Ophaz, and 
Cipango;" apparently assuming that it was the original 
source of all Solomon's treasure. Its future revenues, he 
informed His Holiness, were destined for the redemption 
of Jerusalem : — 

' 1 Much sympathy has been invoked for the Admiral by contrasting 
his humble Franciscan robe and rope girdle with the unusually elabo- 
rate outfit allowed Ovando. Had their positions been reversed, Colum- 
bus would have retained his sombre dress, for the reasons given in a 
previous chapter. 



420 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

" This undertaking was initiated with the purpose of expend- 
ing whatever it yielded in restoring the Holy Sepulchre to the 
Holy Church. After I went thither and examined the country, 
I wrote to the King and Queen my sovereigns that in seven 
years' time I would furnish the mgans for 50,000 infantry and 
5000 cavalry to be employed in that conquest, and five years 
later would supply 50,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry more. . . . 
Satan has thwarted all this, and by his arts has put an end to it 
all, so that neither one nor the other plan can have eflfect, unless 
Our Lord should repair the damage." 

He had expressed the same thought on turning back from 
his Cuban voyage in 1494, and it became more plausible 
now that he was contemplating an expedition which, if suc- 
cessful, would find a short cut to the Red Sea and Mecca, 
the seat of the infidel rule. The extraordinary vicissitudes 
of his career, and especially its marvellous successes, might 
readily have persuaded him that he was a being of superior 
mould as compared with his fellows; one capable of achieve- 
ments immeasurably beyond their limited abilities. In- 
stead, he was convinced that he was a mere implement in the 
hands of his Creator, foreordained to this peculiar work of 
discovery from the beginning of time. From this to a be- 
lief that his predestined service was alluded to in Holy Writ 
was an easy transition for one who held as firmly as did he 
to a divine interposition in the every-day concerns of the 
world, and applied the words of the Psalmist and prophets 
to the ordinary affairs of life. Having found no lack of 
verses which pointed, in his estimation, either to the unveil- 
ing of the Western World or to the recovery of Jerusalem from 
the paynim, he put them together and evolved a produc- 
tion which seemed to him to designate the recovery of the 
Sepulchre as an immediate corollary to the solving of Ocean's 
world-old mystery. The extreme urgency of prompt action 
was dwelt upon, and reasons adduced why the world could 
not last in any event beyond the year 1655. Concurring, 
as this theory did, with his most cherished ambition, he 
was impatient to lay it before his sovereigns as an irresisti- 
ble appeal to their energetic piety. Beginning shortly 
after his release from chains, with his collection of authori- 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 42 1 

ties and supposed prophecies, Columbus had given all the 
time he could spare to the elaboration of his views. But 
he was, to use his own words, only " an ignorant seaman, 
not learned in letters, a mere layman," and as such not con- 
fident of his own ability to becomingly present his evidence 
in so important a matter. Moreover, as the time approached 
for the equipment of his fleet, he found no leisure for satis- 
factorily completing his argument. In this dilemma he 
called in Fray Caspar Corricio; not the narrow-minded 
Carthusian monk some would have us believe, but a skilled 
and accomplished man of affairs, one of their Majesties' 
principal secretaries, and of sufficient note to secure the 
lucrative sinecure of the office of Chief Notary for His- 
paniola. Fray Caspar accepted the task of revision and 
amendment with readiness, and in good time returned what 
he terms the Admiral's "so wholesome, consoling, edifying, 
and inspiriting work," to which he had modestly added his 
own "little fragments, as one gathers together the gleanings 
of the vineyard, olive grove, and cornfield." In this shape 
it was submitted to Ferdinand and Isabella shortly before 
Columbus sailed. 

" Most Christian and Mighty Princes," the Admiral's intro- 
ductory letter began : '' The reason I have for the restoration of 
the Holy Sepulchre to the holy Church Militant is as follows : 

" From a very tender age, Most Potent Sovereigns, I began 
voyaging upon the sea, and therein have continued until this 
day. That art impels whomsoever pursues it to wish to know 
the mysteries of this world. More than 40 years have already 
passed that I have spent in the calling. All that is navigated 
to-day I have sailed over. I have had conversation and acquaint- 
ance with learned men both clerical and lay, with Latins and 
Greeks, Jews and Saracens, and with many of other sects. 

" I have found Our Lord to be favorably inclined to this, my 
desire, and from Him have received a spirit of intelligence for 
its accomplishment. In sea-craft He made me skilful ; of 
astronomy He endowed me with what was sufficient, and of 
arithmetic and geometry as well ; and He gave me the mental 
ability and competent hands to portray a globe and upon it to 
place cities, rivers and mountains, islands and ports, each in its 
own proper place. 

•• In this time I have seen and labored to see all possible 



422 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

writings of cosmography, history, chronicles, philosophy, and other 
sciences until Our Lord, with palpable touch, opened my under- 
standing to see that it was practicable to sail from here to the 
Indies, and aroused in me the desire to undertake it. With this 
fire in my heart I came to your Majesties. All those who knew 
of my project jeeringly derided it ; with them neither the sciences 
I have spoken of nor the authorities cited from these availed 
anything. In your Majesties alone remained faith and con- 
stancy. Who shall doubt that this light was not given you by 
the Holy Ghost, as it was to me? that He favored you with 
marvellous gleams of brightness from His holy and sacred 
Scriptures ? Clear and high they spoke to me ; with four-and- 
forty books of the Old Testament, the four Gospels and twenty- 
three Epistles of the Blessed Apostles, encouraging me to 
proceed, as they still encourage me, without a moment's cessa- 
tion, to continue with all speed." 

The argument — if so it can be called — then proceeds 
through eighty-four pages of manuscript. Since the discov- 
ery of the Western World was due to inspiration, as great 
heed should be paid to the suggestions of the Spirit con- 
cerning the recovery of Jerusalem. Owing to the near 
approach of the end of the world, and the consequent extinc- 
tion of all Mohammedans, unless their Catholic Majesties 
undertook the crusade, countless millions of souls must be 
lost. Their conquest of Granada and the Indies marked 
them out as the instruments of the divine purpose. 

" From the creation of the world, or from Adam, to the com- 
ing of Our Lord Jesus Christ, was 5343 years and 318 days, by the 
calculation of the King, Don Alfonso, which is considered most 
accurate." Adding to these 1501, — not yet finished, — the total 
is 6845, — not quite completed. According to this count only 
155 years are lacking to the 7000 within which the world will 
come to an end, according to the authorities cited above." ^ 

Such was the tone of this singular composition. It w-as 
filled with long passages from the Prophets, from the Fathers, 
and from the works of learned Jewish Rabbis. It closes 

1 This Don Alfonso was he, surnamed " the Wise," who reigned in 
the thirteenth century. The authorities quoted are St. Augustine and 
those who adopted his calculations, in particular the Cardinal Pierre 
d'Ailly, or Petrus Aliacus. 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 423 

with a number of glosas, or verses elaborating certain texts, 
which are no worse than the average of amateur rhymes, but 
certainly are no better. In the original, fourteen pages are 
cut out, and an ancient marginal note declares that they 
contained the matter of greatest importance. As it stands, 
the work sheds a curious light upon the nature of its author, 
and is indispensable for a just knowledge of his character. 
"Maundering" and "drivelling," as his critics claim, it is 
not ; unless we are prepared to designate by the same terms 
the theological and religious views held by all those from 
whom we ourselves may differ. Humboldt, in speaking of 
it, has well said that no one thinks the less of Newton because 
he speculated concerning the horns on Ezekiel's beast, and 
the illustration could be multiplied indefinitely. With his 
singular leaning towards mysticism, it is not strange that 
Columbus should have argued himself into believing what 
he expressed in this paper, small as was the chance of his 
convincing any one else. Throughout his later life his 
actions, even more than his words, indicate that he looked 
upon himself as one "devoted," and under the direct guid- 
ance of the Almighty for good or ill. If his acts were not 
always consistent with such a conviction, they only increase 
the evidence that he was mistaken. 

By the opening of the year 1502, Ovando's great fleet was 
ready to sail. At his final audience with the sovereigns, 
Ferdinand delivered a long discourse upon the duties of a 
righteous judge and prudent governor, ending, if we may 
accept Herrera's report of the harangue, with the injunction 
to " apply with promptness the needful punishment when- 
ever occasion demanded, lest the same should happen with 
him which befell the Admiral; for in such emergencies the 
chastisement should fall like a stroke of lightning." Con- 
sidering that half the Admiral's difficulties arose from the 
readiness of the King and Queen to believe prejudiced 
charges of his excessive rigor in executing the laws, there 
was a grim humor in the King's closing words which could 
not have been wholly lost upon his hearer. The Governor 
set sail from San Lucar on the 13th of February, and nearly 
came to grief in a storm which overtook him a few days 



424 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

later. His vessels were for the most part overladen and ran 
great risk of foundering; but after being scattered among 
the Canaries, and along the Barbary coast, they reunited at 
Gomera with the loss of a single ship, her crew, and 120 
passengers. Resuming his course, he reached San Domingo 
on the 15th of April, and all his fleet straggled in later on 
without other disaster. 

The departure of the larger armament left Fonseca and 
Bribiesca no further excuse for delaying that of Columbus. 
He had established himself in Seville as early as the pre- 
ceding October, and begun his preparations, so that the 
fitting out of his squadron now proceeded rapidly. Four 
ships were chartered, the largest of seventy, the smallest of 
fifty tons burthen. Their crews numbered 141 men and 
boys, besides the Admiral's small personal staff. There was 
an unusual proportion of good material in the number, as 
the sequel will show. Provisions for two years were taken, 
and an ample stock of goods for barter with the Indians. 
Besides Don Bartholomew, — who was at first inclined to 
think he could be of greater service by remaining in Spain, 
— Columbus asked and obtained the royal permission to 
take with him his youngest son, Fernando, a boy of thirteen 
years. The Admiral, in addition to the letters furnished 
him to the Eastern princes, requested to be furnished with 
one or two interpreters who knew Arabic, and this was 
granted. His application to be allowed to touch at His- 
paniola on the outward passage was, however, refused, on 
the ground that there was no time to lose in getting to the 
scene of his intended exploration. On the return voyage, 
their Majesties said, he might touch there for a few days, 
if it were necessary. An open letter given him for de- 
livery to any Portuguese commander was based upon the 
probability of his meeting the ships of that nation in the 
distant seas of the Orient. 

Their Majesties' final replies and instructions were dated 
in the middle of March. In answer to the Admiral's ear- 
nest entreaty that, in the event of his death while on this 
voyage, Ferdinand and Isabella would render to his sons 
and brothers that ample justice which he claimed was due 



THE AMEND POLITIC. 



425 



himself, the sovereigns sent him a solemn pledge — as 
solemn as any of its emphatic predecessors : — 

"As to that part of your memorials and letters referring to 
yourself, your sons and your brothers, we cannot take action 
until we settle in some place, for we are, as you know, making 
a progress and you on the point of sailing, and if you were to 
wait for this you would lose the voyage you are about to make. 
Therefore it is better, since everything you require for your 
journey is in readiness, that you set sail at once, without any 
delay, and leave to your son the duty of promoting the petitions 
contained in your memorials. Be assured that we were deeply 
grieved by your imprisonment, as you saw beyond question and 
all know of a certainty, for as soon as we knew of it we ordered 
it to be undone. You know, moreover, the distinction with 
which we have always commanded that you should be treated, 
and we are now much more determined to honor and distinguish 
you. The rewards we have given you shall be entirely fulfilled, 
according to the form and tenor of our agreements, as you have 
seen, without anything being allowed to aifect them, and you 
and your sons shall enjoy them as is right. If it be needful to 
confirm them again, we will confirm them, and we will direct 
that your son be placed in possession of the whole. Even in 
more than this we have the desire to honor and reward you, and we 
shall hold your sons and brothers in the consideration which is 
due. All this can be done if you sail at once, leaving these things 
in charge of your son, and so we ask that in your departure there 
may be no delay." 

And Columbus believed this specious rigmarole, accepted 
it as his sovereigns' plighted faith, and started upon his 
plunge into the unknown with perfect confidence in his 
royal patrons ! — or almost perfect confidence. Don Diego, 
his oldest son and heir, a lad of rare intelligence, was com- 
missioned to prosecute his father's claims in consultation 
with his tried friends. But to provide for possible emer- 
gencies, duplicate copies of all his agreements with the 
Crown, his patents of rank, and other evidences of his rights, 
were made out and sent by different hands to the Signory of 
Genoa, his native city, there to be preserved as that city's 
title to the portion of his estate bequeathed it in his will 
of February 22nd, 1498. He may not have doubted the 



426 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

loyalty of the King and Queen; but for his children's sake 
he wished to secure the cooperation of the powerful republic 
in the event of any attempt on the part of the Spanish Crown 
to evade its obligations after his death. Others might not 
attach the same importance to the matter that he did, but 
he saw farther than they, and knew that, if his guaranteed 
rights were respected, his estate would be worthy even of 
the attention of the wealthy commonwealth of St. George. 

By the middle of April the four caravels — the flagship, 
"Gallego," "Santiago," and "Vizcaina" — were ready to 
sail, but they did not leave Cadiz until the nth of May.^ 
To the spectators of their departure they were only another 
trading venture into the now familiar Indies, no more inter- 
esting than the four ships of Hojeda. The more recent 
sailing of Ovando's stately fleet had furnished a marine 
spectacle worth the seeing, but this affair of the "old Ad- 
miral's" was commonplace. Nine years before the bay 
had rung with cheers as he led his own imposing array of 
ships out into the then new regions; but that was too long 
for the populace to remember. With most of them Colum- 
bus now ranked with Hojeda, Guerra, Bastidas, and the Pin- 
zons, and they probably looked for his return in due time 
with the usual lading of Indian slaves, strange weapons, 
screaming parrots, and ague-stricken crew. Twenty years 
later they hailed Magellan's lieutenant as a prodigy of skill 
and valor on his return from circling the globe, and he was 
granted the proud motto, " Thou wast the first to encompass 
me." Yet on that May morning, in 1502, the "old Ad- 
miral," little as they knew it, was setting forth equally 
determined to return to Spain with a rising sun. "Thou 
first attempted to girdle me " might as properly have been 
allotted to Columbus. 

1 Following the report of Porras, the royal comptroller on board the 
squadron. Las Casas says the 9th. 



if 


g 


^ 






^O 


^ 




m 




^^^ 


^^^?o)^ 


^sk 


s 



XXI. 

ANTICIPATING MAGELLAN. 

JUST south of the Strait of Gibraltar, on the Atlantic 
coast of Morocco, the Portuguese maintained a garri- 
son in the small town of Arcila — a dreary enough post, 
with the sea of Sahara sands piling against its landward 
walls and the waves of Ocean beating against its front. 
Among the knights who held the fortress were certain 
kinsmen of Doiia Felipa Moniz de Perestrello, the long- 
dead wife of Columbus. This may have been known to the 
Admiral while he was lying at San Lucar awaiting a favor- 
able wind ; at all events, he there learned that the place was 
suffering from a prolonged siege by the desert tribes, and 
was in evil phght. Instead, therefore, of holding his course 
direct to the Canaries, as originally proposed, he steered 
south and suddenly appeared off Arcila. His object was 
to impress the Moors with the conviction that a relieving 
fleet was arriving, and thus alarm them into abandoning the 
siege ; but, on communicating with the shore, he found the 
besiegers had already raised their leaguer, and withdrawn 
into the interior. Don Bartholomew and the captains of 
the caravels paid a ceremonious visit to the wounded Gov- 
ernor of the place, offering him in the Admiral's name any 
assistance the squadron could supply, and in return for this 
courtesy a number of the officers, including the Admiral's 
connections, went aboard the vessels to thank him for his 
friendly intervention. This exchange of civilities ended, 
the Admiral hoisted sail on the same day and stood for the 
Canaries. His little military excursion is commonly attrib- 

427 



428 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

uted to orders received from the King and Queen, but the 
facts point rather to its being an independent exercise of 
his undoubted prerogatives as an Admiral of Castile. Por- 
tugal and Spain were at peace, and it did not consist either 
with his own or Don Bartholomew's disposition to lose so 
fair a chance of chastising the hated Moors without serious 
inconvenience to their own plans. If he also learned, on 
reaching Cadiz from Seville, that his wife's kinsmen were in 
the beleaguered town, there was a double reason for his 
action. We are surprised that his critics have overlooked 
this instance of the " nepotism " with which, for some occult 
reason, they charge him. 

The squadron reached the Great Canary on the 20th, 
took in wood and water, and on the 26th dropped the last 
of the islands, Ferro, below the horizon and started on the 
cruise which was expected to continue around the globe. For 
once all the elements were propitious to Columbus, and on 
Thursday, the 15th of June, he dropped anchor in a harbor 
of Mantinino, — that " island of Amazons " which he failed 
to find in 1492, and which we now call Martinique.^ Here 
he remained for three days to take in wood and water, and 
allow the crews an opportunity to stretch their legs on land. 
Weighing anchor, he sailed through the glorious archipelago, 
along the south coast of Porto Rico, and so on to the port 
of San Domingo, off which he arrived on the 29th of June. 
Thus far his voyage had been not only the most rapid 
but the most featureless of the seven passages he had made 
across the Ocean Sea. It is even recorded by his son that 
the sails were not shifted between the Canaries and Man- 

^ Dr. Winsor does not neglect to remark that Columbus " professed 
to have been but twenty days between Cadiz and Martinino, but the 
statement seems to have been confused with his usual inaccuracy." 
Now the Admiral's own words are, " From Cadiz I passed to the Cana- 
ries in four days and thence to the Indies in sixteen days, where I 
wrote." If we allow for the detentions off Arcila and in the island, — 
and even modern captains count only their running time, — the Admi- 
ral's statement is probably exact. The fact that he landed zX. Martinique 
on the 15th does not militate against his having sighted Barbadoes or 
the neighboring islands two or three days earlier. " From land to 
land " is an honest sailor-man's count to this day. 



ANTICIPATING MAGELLAN. 429 

tinino, so persistently favorable were the wind and weather. 
But one of his ships proved to be a sluggish sailer and a 
dangerous sea-boat, having so low a freeboard that any 
attempt to crowd on sail caused her to ship water even in 
fair weather. To attempt to circumnavigate the world with 
such a vessel would be folly, and the Admiral, calling a 
council of his captains and pilots,^ submitted to them the 
query as to whether they considered the ship seaworthy. 
Their opinion confirming his own, he determined to apply 
to 'Ovando for another vessel, despite the royal command 
not to touch at Hispaniola. 

In order to avoid publicity, and the possibility of a dispute 
with the Governor which could not fail to demoralize his 
men, he did not enter the harbor of San Domingo but passed 
on to a bay some leagues farther west. Here he anchored 
in the midst of a violent tempest, which sprang up at the 
time, and, to the Admiral's trained eye, threatened to last 
for several days. From this spot he despatched Pedro de 
Terreros, the captain of the defective craft and an old com- 
panion of the Admiral's, to the neighboring city, charged to 
present the squadron's plight to Ovando and request per- 
mission for it to enter the harbor of San Domingo. The 
Admiral offered either to exchange the vessel for a more 
suitable one, or to buy another outright from among the 
Governor's numerous fleet. He also called Ovando's atten- 
tion to the signs of continued foul weather which were ap- 
parent, and explained that he feared for the safety of his 
squadron in the exposed haven he had temporarily selected. 
Doubtful of the success of his appeal, despite the reasonable 
grounds upon which it was based, he committed to Terreros a 
package of letters to their Majesties and others, which he had 
written after reaching Mantinino, on the chance of finding a 
means for transmitting them to Spain. In them he had out- 
lined his perfected plan, which was to sail direct for Jamaica, 
and thence steer due west and make all progress possible 
while the ships were in good condition and the men disposed 
for the adventure. Terreros duly delivered both message 
and letters. Ovando's answer to the former was a flat refusal, 
^ Report of the comptroller Porras. 



430 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

and a demand that the Admiral proceed on his course 
without even landing on the coast, much less coming to 
San Domingo. His motive was, obviously enough, to pre- 
vent any conflict between the Admiral's partisans and those 
of Bobadilla and Roldan. Both the latter worthies, with 
numbers of their adherents, had been arrested, and were 
then on board the vessels of the fleet which had brought out 
the Governor and was just on the eve of sailing again for 
Spain, and feeling ran so high in the city that a disturbance 
could hardly have been averted had Columbus appeared on 
the scene. There were other ways, however, in which the 
asked-for succor might have been rendered without endan- 
gering the peace, and the ungracious rejection of his appeal 
cut the Admiral to the quick. It had, moreover, the serious 
effect, when generally known, of undermining his authority 
among his own men ; for they began to ask themselves, what 
kind of an admiral was this who was repulsed from one 
of his own ports by a governor of a few months' standing? 
Although he felt the moral effect of Ovando's action as 
keenly as the material, the Admiral did not allow it to 
affect his sense of right. His brief detention at anchor 
had changed into certainty his apprehensions concerning 
the approach of a great storm, and he delayed his depart- 
ure long enough to send a second messenger to Ovando, 
entreating him not to permit the fleet to leave the harbor 
until the weather changed, and that he was going to seek 
a safe shelter for his own little squadron further along the 
coast. To this warning neither the Governor nor his people 
paid heed. The fact that the former Viceroy had been 
denied entrance was notorious, and his presumption in 
forecasting the weather only resulted in the seamen and 
hangers-on about the town jeering him for a would-be 
soothsayer and prophet. The Admiral took refuge with 
his four vessels in the port of Hermoso, some sixty miles 
west of San Domingo ; the Governor's fleet stood bravely 
out to sea carrying Bobadilla, Roldan, the ill-starred Guari- 
onex, the native King of the Vega Real, a large number of 
other prisoners, both native and Spanish, and upwards of 
200,000 castellanos in gold — the product of the alleged 



ANTICIPATING MAG ELIAN. 43 I 

worthless mines of Bonao ana Cibao. Within forty-eight 
hours a terrific hurricane swept over the region, which, on 
shore, utterly destroyed the ill-built town, and, at sea, foun- 
dered more than twenty out of the thirty or thirty-one 
vessels composing the homeward-bound fleet. Las Casas, 
who then experienced his first hurricane, aptly says, that " it 
seemed like nothing so much as that the whole army of 
devils had broken loose from hell," and the description has 
never been surpassed. All the Crown gold and the prisoners 
were lost ; neither man nor boy escaping from the over- 
whelmed ships. The squadron of Columbus, on the other 
hand, although driven from its anchorage, widely scattered 
and subjected to imminent peril, was able to reunite after 
the storm, without the loss of a life. The most singular 
incident in this whole strange episode is, that of the handful 
of Ovando's ships which escaped destruction, that which 
bore the Admiral's property — or so much of it as Carvajal 
had been able to collect in the few weeks which had elapsed 
since Ovando's displacement of Bobadilla — was one.^ 

After repairing damages in Port Hermoso the Admiral 
laid his course for Jamaica, but was forced to put into the 
port of Brazil, or Jacmel as our maps call it, to ride out 
another gale which was brewing. Hence he sailed on the 
14th of July, and, in the face of such weather, that, to use 
his own phrase, he had to " creep on all fours," arrived 
two days later at the Morant keys, off the Jamaican coast. 
His usual pertinacity, or rather obstinacy, in standing watch 
at times of peril, brought on a fresh attack of gout, which 
was but the prelude to the illness which crippled him during 
this cruise and the succeeding years of his life. After 

1 Doubt has been cast upon the alleged warning sent by Columbus 
to Ovando, on the ground that the former does not mention it. As he 
knew nothing of its effects until long after, and as he had other things 
to do than write letters at the time, this objection seems scarcely well 
taken. Las Casas, who was in San Domingo at the time, gives a 
circumstantial account, which we have followed. As to the charge 
that Columbus recklessly disobeyed their Majesties' orders not to touch 
at San Domingo, we think the facts stated above show that he did not 
violate their spirit, but acted with judgment and loyalty in an unex- 
pected and dangerous emergency. 



432 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

securing a scanty supply of brackish water from holes sunk 
in the sand, — for the ships' breakers were staved or other- 
wise damaged by the gales, — he put to sea and steered 
W.S.W. This course, he thought, would take him about 
midway between Cuba and the southern continent, in the 
direction of the supposed strait, and he maintained it for 
four days. During the greater part of this time the winds 
were light and fitful, while the strong currents were bearing 
him resistlessly to the south and west of Jamaica, although 
land was not seen. The next four days were passed in 
drifting so rapidly to the north and west, that on the 24th 
of July the squadron was actually off the group of islands 
lying along the southern coast of Cuba, which he had christ- 
ened the Queen's Garden when he discovered them on his 
exploring cruise in 1494. He had, indeed, nearly reached 
again the extreme western limit of that cruise. Only a few 
leagues farther on were the island of Evangelista and that 
Gulf of Batabano where his crew had given their much- 
derided depositions to the effect that Cuba must be a part 
of Asia. As he now lay at anchor among the islands which 
had then so impeded his navigation, his thoughts were on 
the same problem whose solution had at that time so 
strongly tempted his ambition. Despite the lapse of years 
he was but carrying out the project he had planned among 
the same scenes, — to sail westward around the globe and 
return to Cadiz by way of the Red Sea or the Cape of 
Good Hope. In '94 he had found the coast of western 
Cuba turning toward the south, and had assumed that it was 
prolonged indefinitely in that quarter. Since then he had 
discovered Paria, and its shores had in turn been explored 
for 1200 miles toward the west by his imitators. Some of 
his pilots had secured, either in Hispaniola or in Spain, 
notes of the last voyage of Bastidas, wherein the coast of 
the southern continent was represented as turning north 
again beyond the Gulf of Uraba, — or, as we call it, Darien. 
If such were the case, the Admiral's supposed passage into 
the seas of the Orient would lie somewhere to the southwest 
of his present position : it could not lie due west, for he 
believed the Cuban coast, by trending southward just beyond 



ANTICIPATING MAG EUAN. 433 

Evangelista Island, must close all passage in that quarter ; 
and it did not lie south, since the new mainland was there. 
Consequently, after passing three days among the Queen's 
Garden, he weighed anchor and steered S.S.W. 

On the 30th of July land was sighted. It proved to be 
an inhabited island of considerable extent, and Don Barthol- 
omew went ashore to learn what he might from the natives. 
They came to meet him with frankness, and differed little 
from the Indians of the other islands. They called their 
island Guanaja^ and their cacique Imibe. They did not 
recognize either pearls or gold-dust when samples of these 
were shown them, and asked the Spaniards to give them the 
pretty trifles. Obviously, nothing was to be gained from 
such barbarians, and Don Bartholomew was on his way back 
to the ships, when his attention was arrested by two canoes 
coming along the shore of the island from the west. Unlike 
any he had before seen, one of the crafts had a neatly 
thatched cabin erected in its stern. It was propelled by a 
score of paddlers, and carried a number of women and chil- 
dren. On discovering the Spanish boats, the newcomers 
checked their headway, and allowed themselves to be cap- 
tured, not without remonstrance, and taken off to the Ad- 
miral's flagship. If their boat was singular its contents were 
far more so, and the Spaniards hailed, with gratified surprise,, 
the evidences of approximate civilization which met their 
eyes. The canoe seemed to be abroad on a trading voyage, 
for her cargo was extensive and varied. There were cloaks 
and tunics or gowns of cotton, finely worked and skilfully 
dyed ; embroidered waist-cloths of the same material ; 
copper hatchets ; knives chipped out from obsidian ; bells 
and cups of copper ; crucibles for melting metals ; a large 
number of murderous-looking two-handed swords, consist- 
ing of a heavy wooden blade edged with sharp flints ; and a 
store of odd-looking nuts, which the Spaniards thought were 
a new kind of almond, but which were, in fact, the cacao-bean.^ 

1 Usually spelled Bonacca on our charts. With its neighbors Ruatan 
and Utila, it lies north of Truxillo on the coast of Honduras. 

2 The common medium of exchange, it will be remembered, in the 
Aztec Empire. 

28 



434 ^^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Men, as well as women, showed a modesty of dress and 
demeanor when in the presence of their captors which 
was entirely novel in the latter's experience. It was ap- 
parent even to the common sailors that these were people 
of a race far superior to those of Cuba, Hispaniola, and 
Paria, while to the Admiral they personified the long-sought 
empire of the Grand Khan. Eleven years had passed since 
he had first sought the Court of that potentate among the 
dense recesses of the Cuban forests, and with the single 
exception of one gown-clad figure, alleged to have been 
seen on his second Cuban cruise, not a garment had he 
seen more elaborate than the breech-clouts of Paria among 
the tribes of the New World. To find a people with a sense 
of propriety and shame, becomingly — if simply — dressed, 
familiar with the arts of metal-working, and possessing im- 
proved implements of war, was to him proof positive that 
he had at last touched the borders of the hitherto elusive 
Orient. 

In reply to his eager interrogatories, limited as they were 
to the Haytian dialect and to such gestures as might be 
helpful, the strangers seemed genuinely anxious to give 
him information. As far as they were understood they 
apparently said they came from a country called Ciguar6, 
about nine days' journey to the west. Gold was plentiful 
in that region ; the princes and nobles wore coronets and 
bracelets of the precious metal, and possessed chairs, 
tables, and coffers plated with it. Corals, pearls, and spices 
abounded in their favored land, and their King had ships 
and cannon, weapons and shields, — yes, and horses, too, — 
such as were described by the strange white men who were 
asking questions. An ocean washed the shores of Ciguare, 
but not the one on which they were ; and ten days beyond 
their country was a river called the Ganges ! Such, at least, 
was the interpretation given by Columbus to the replies he 
received, and none of the disasters or disappointments sub- 
sequently encountered on this ill-starred voyage caused him 
to abandon this belief; rather did he find what he con- 
sidered supporting evidence as he pursued his course. To 
him the only question calling for reflection was the direction 



ANTICIPATING MAGELLAN. 435 

to be followed in reaching the gorgeous realms of which he 
had heard, and to assist in the search, he induced an old 
man among his informants to join the Spaniards as guide, qr 
pilot. The other occupants of the canoe were dismissed, 
after having exchanged their native wares for Castilian 
gew-gaws. 

From Guanaja the Admiral steered for a coast line visible 
some forty miles to the south, whose length and lofty sum- 
mits indicated a land of greater extent. Reaching a cape, 
which he christened Caxinas,^ he found the coast extending 
east and west as far as it could be traced. Which direction 
should he follow ? His Indian guide, when pressed to show 
the quarter in which the gold was so abundant, pointed to 
the east, and enumerated the names of various provinces. 
The canoe which bore so significant a lading had come from 
the west. ■ Upon the decision hung the failure or success of 
his undertaking, and in turning his bows eastward, Columbus 
left to Grijalva and Francisco Hernandez the glory of find- 
ing Mexico. There must have been some convincing reason 
which led him thus to take a direction which was that of 
Spain rather than of Cathay. The deciding motive is usually 
attributed to the Indian's indication of gold, but that is in- 
sufficient, for on none of his exploring voyages did Columbus 
subordinate his greater objective to the amassing of treasure ; 
he was content to learn where such existed. Certainly on 
no other cruise had he before him a more seductive goal 
than on the present, and if he turned the stern of his ships 
to the setting sun it was for some commanding reason. We 
think this is furnished in his persistent faith in the conti- 
nental character of Cuba. Searching for a passage into the 
eastern seas, and believing that the Cuban coast swept 
around indefinitely to the west and south, he would have 
argued that the coast on which he was now was but the ex- 
tension of the northern continent. To proceed westward 
would only entail ultimately a return to the already twice fol- 
lowed track along the southern shores of Cuba. In that 
direction there could be no access to the East by water. By 
following the new coast eastward, on the contrary, he would 
1 The modern Cape Honduras. 



436 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

doubtless find the passage which led to Ciguare, Cathay, 
and the Ganges, at some point between his present position 
and the limit of Bastidas' cruise along the coasts of Terra 
Firma. Las Casas intimates as much, when he says that 
Columbus hoped to find the passage in about the latitude of 
what we know as the Chagres River. But we have yet more 
convincing proof that the Admiral's object in steering east was 
not to find gold, but finally to reach the strait which should 
take him westward again into the seas which washed Cathay. 
When, in 15 17, Francisco Hernandez de Cordova sailed 
for Cuba on a slaving expedition to the Guanajas and 
Honduras, he was persuaded by his pilot, Anton de Ala- 
minos, to sail westward instead, on the certainty of finding 
lands of surpassing wealth. Fifteen years before, the shrewd 
mariner had been a common sailor aboard the Admiral's 
flagship on the cruise we are now describing. He had ob- 
served that his commander acted on information of the ex- 
istence of regions of vast importance in the West and guided 
himself accordingly, but was compelled ultimately by the 
loss of some of his ships to abandon the search. Alaminos, 
however, had closely observed all that occurred, and when 
the Admiral turned back without finding the strait, his 
watchful sailor knew that the anxiously sought western pas- 
sage must lie north of Honduras, if it existed at all. He 
and Francisco Hernandez did not find it in 15 17, but they 
did find Cozumel and Yucatan to such good purpose that, 
in 15 19, the same pilot undertook to guide Hernan Cortez 
upon his voyage of conquest. Thus, ultimately, was the 
discovery and downfall of the Aztec Empire associated with 
the " old Admiral's " decision to turn eastward from Caxinas 
Point. The grandeur of his aims, and the information under 
which he acted, survived the wreck of his own attempt. By 
pursuing the direction which he abandoned, and profiting by 
his negative experience, one of his seamen was able to unveil 
the empire whose vaguely described marvels had so deeply 
impressed the great navigator with the proximity of the 
Asiatic courts.^ 

1 Prof. Fiske suggests that the Admiral was guided in his choice of 
direction by Pedro de Ledesma, one of his pilots, who had been with 



ANTICIPATING MAGELLAN. 437 

Having determined to follow the coast to the eastward, 
the Admiral found his progress barred by a succession of 
violent storms from that quarter which compelled the 
squadron to remain under the shelter of the point for sev- 
eral days. A landing was made to permit the priest to hold 
Mass, and the Spaniards were received by the natives with 
fearless frankness. On the occasion of Don Bartholomew's 
taking formal possession of the country a day or two later, 
at the river he called the River of Possession and we the 
Black River, the Indians appeared with abundant supplies 
of food and fruits which they pressed upon their visitors, 
who in turn distributed bells, needles, and looking-glasses. 
The natives called their country Maia, and although many 
of them were adorned no otherwise than as nature made 
them, plus a coating of charcoal or paint, others wore 
colored gowns or caps. This raiment, scanty as it was, 
coupled with the fact that " lions " and other large quad- 
rupeds were said to haunt the forests, tended to confirm 
the Admiral's confidence that he was on the right road to 
reach the kingdoms of the East, and increased his impatience 
to continue his journey. But the elements were incessantly 
opposed to him, and he had to fight his way in the teeth of 
almost continuous gales and a strong adverse current. For 
days at a time the average progress would amount only to a 
few miles, despite a constant tacking off and on shore while 
daylight lasted. On some days, he says, he could only 
make a single mile, and the current ran so strong that his 
lead could not reach the bottom. At night the squadron 
came to anchor as best it could, for the coast was not one 
to encourage rashness. On the 12th of September the 
arduous struggles came to an end for the time being, for the 
eastward trend of the coast terminated abruptly in a long 

Pinzon, Solis, and Vespucci on the assumed voyage of 1497 to Yucatan, 
Mexico, and Florida, and who was therefore necessarily aware that no 
strait existed to the north and west of Honduras. But both Pinzon 
and Ledesma swore, in 15 13, in the great cause of Columbus vs. the 
Crown, that their Yucatan- Florida voyage was made after the Admiral's 
discovery of Veragua and search for the strait. {Navarette, Vol. III., 
p. ^^Z, fregunta 10.) We make this mention in no spirit of captious- 
ness. 



438 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

narrow cape, beyond which the land seemed to run due 
south. The change of direction, which was accomplished 
only after a long and stormy contest, brought with it im- 
proved weather, and the Admiral gave the name of Gracias 
a Dios to the cape in thanksgiving for the relief from the 
distressing experiences of the last few weeks. In truth, the 
exploration had opened in a manner little calculated to 
encourage the superstitious sailors or their commander. 
Since leaving Caxinas, if not since leaving the Keys of 
Jamaica, neither sun nor stars had been visible.^ 

" My vessels were yawning open," he writes, '' their sails in 
rags ; anchors, rigging, cables, boats, and much provision lost ; 
tlie ships' companies enfeebled ; all repenting of their sins and 
many promising to be religious ; not a man without some vow 
or promised pilgrimage. On frequent occasions they even con- 
fessed their sins to one another. Other tempests there ha\'e 
been, but none which lasted so long or caused such fear. Time 
and time again those we considered courageous lost all heart. 
Grief for the son whom I had brought with me tormented my 
soul ; all the more because at the tender age of 13 he was called 
upon to support such prolonged hardships. Our Lord gave him 
such strength that he revived the spirits of the others, comforted 
me, and shared the work as though he had been at sea for eighty 
years. I had fallen ill and was at death's door several times. 
From a little cabin which I caused to be built on deck I directed 
the ships' movements. My brother was in the worst and most 
dangerous vessel. Great was my regret on his account, for I 
had brought him against his will ; but such has been my fortune 
that the 20 years of service which I have passed with such con- 
stant toil and peril have profited me so little that I have not 
to-day in Spain a roof of my own." 

From this point, pursuing a southerly course, the Admiral 
found the winds and currents favoring him for several days. 
At the mouth of a river, which he baptized " the Disaster," 
he lost one of his boats with its crew, who were attempting 
to cross the bar in search of firewood ; but in comparison 
with the dangers to which all hands had been so long ex- 

1 " For 88 clays the terrible storm did not leave me," is the Admiral's 
comment, but there is an evident error in transcription or of memory. 
His report was not written until July, 1503, and he was then in extreme 
misery and distress. 



ANTICIPATING MAGELLAN. 



439 



posed, the smaller catastrophe made little impression. The 
region about Gracias a Dios was flat and uninteresting, and 
the few natives seen were in keeping with their surroundings. 
As the squadron proceeded south, however, both the country 
and its inhabitants improved in appearance. By the i yth 
of the month a point was reached where the coast presented 
the aspect of a veritable park ; the shore was covered with 
forests of exquisite beauty, a broad river poured its waters 
into the sea between banks of vine-hung trees, a wide beach 
of dazzling sand ran to the forest's edge, while a chain of 
rugged cloud-capped mountains, rising some distance in the 
interior, furnished an imposing background. Fronting the 
river's mouth was a verdant island affording a safe and invit- 
ing anchorage, while a large village on the mainland seemed 
to be peopled with natives of a better class than those seen 
since the arrival at Port Caxinas. Here the Admiral deter- 
mined to remain for some days to allow his men a little 
liberty after their arduous voyage, and to make such repairs 
about his ships and their rigging as the stormy passage had 
made necessary. The Indians at first resented the intrusion 
of the strangers, gathering in force upon the beach near 
their town, and exhibiting a formidable array of bows, lances, 
and great wooden swords ; but seeing that no harm was 
intended, they soon swam out to the vessels and indicated 
a desire to be friendly. They had nothing to barter except 
their bright-hued cotton gowns and a few ornaments of 
guanin, or base gold, and these the Admiral decHned to 
receive, in the belief that such indifference would lead them 
to produce their more valuable possessions. He caused his 
visitors to be well treated and enriched with Spanish trinkets, 
and was much surprised when his men, on landing for the 
first time, found the gifts all neatly tied up and lying on the 
beach, as if in intimation that the natives on reaching home 
had decided not to accept anything except in the way of 
fair trade. To propitiate the Spaniards, they even went so 
far as to send down to the boats a couple of not unduly 
bashful maidens, in charge of an elderly chief who bore a 
flag fixed on a lance for all the world like a Christian mes- 
senger. The prompt return from the ships of the young 



440 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

women, decked out in Castilian garments by the Admiral's 
orders, served to establish confidence between the Indians 
and the Spaniards, and opened the way for frank communi- 
cation. Don Bartholomew made several visits to their settle- 
ment during the succeeding days and was received with 
much honor. He found the natives to possess keen curiosity 
coupled with much intelligence. Their chiefs and principal 
men answered his inquiries with apparent readiness, and only 
showed apprehension when the notary accompanying Don 
Bartholomew drew out his writing materials and began to 
take notes of their replies. At this they fled in confusion, 
and when they were finally induced to return took care to 
burn certain fragrant powders and blow the smoke towards 
the Christians before joining them again. Evidently they 
looked upon the worthy Diego Mendez and his ink-marks 
as allied with the Evil One. They called their own district 
Cariari, or Cariay ; the island fronting it, Quiriviri.^ Their 
gold came from mines in the interior ; there was much also 
in the country of Carambarii, or Azabaro, which adjoined 
their own to the south. Their houses were well built, and 
in many of them the mummied corpses of defunct relatives 
were preserved, surrounded by the articles they had most 
highly prized. A certain amount of skill in wood-carving 
was exhibited in these houses, and the people were, gen- 
erally speaking, somewhat more advanced in their mode of 
life than those of Hayti and the other islands. When, after 
several days of intercourse between the ships and the shore, 
the Admiral ordered two of their most intelligent men to be 
brought off to the flagship, to serve as guides to the coast 
of Carambarii, there was a great lamentation. Four chiefs 
came aboard to beg for the release of their fellow-tribesmen, 
and although loaded with presents and assured that the men 
should be restored in a few days, they declined to be con- 
soled. In particular did they resent the Admiral's refusal to 
exchange them for two wild-hogs, or peccaries, which the 

1 The modern Bluefields is supposed to correspond to the Cariay 
of Columbus by some geographers, while others believe it to be Gray- 
town in Nicaragua. The former site seems more closely to answer the 
description given of Cariay and its adjacent island. 



ANTICIPATING MAGELLAN. 441 

chiefs had liberally provided as an offset. Apparently they 
thought that the Christians had seized the men as an addi- 
tion to their larder, and considered the pigs as a fair equiva- 
lent. The guides themselves do not seem to have shared 
their friends' apprehension as to their fate, for we find them 
later on aiding the Spaniards efficiently in persuading the 
natives that scraps of looking-glass were more valuable than 
ornaments of massive gold. 

On October 5th the Admiral left his anchorage off Cariay 
and stood southward in quest of Carambaru.^ What he 
gathered, or inferred, from the Indians of the former dis- 
trict concerning the latter had excited a lively expectation 
in his mind, for the name had already been repeated as a 
place abounding in gold by the Indians taken on board at 
Guanaja. To Columbus there seemed to be reasons why 
the inland gold mines mentioned by the people of Cariay 
must be in the Asiatic province of Ciamba, a part of the 
gorgeous Orient he was seeking. One of the sailors had 
killed an enormous monkey in the woods while the ships 
were last lying at anchor, and the beast recalled to the 
Admiral some of the accounts given by Marco Polo of such 
monsters in the great eastern islands. At many places along 
shore huge "crocodiles" were basking, — another sugges- 
tion of the Nile and Ganges. Moreover, the shores of the 
ocean were in many places covered with dense shrubbery 
down to the water's edge ; the bushes fantastically standing 
on long stilt-like roots, so interlaced that they seemed to 
belong to a single bush of vast extent ; and such growths 
were described by Pliny as usual to the quiet waters of the 
Persian Gulf. These and similar observations lent color to 
the conceptions engendered by the meeting with the trading 
canoes at Guanaja, and inspired the Admiral with fresh 
hopes. If his inferences were well founded, he should find 
the strait ere long, and through it reach the provinces which 
lay behind Cariay and the coast regions he was skirting. 

1 The Caravaro of Las Casas; Zerabora of Fernando Columbus; 
Cerabaro of Porras and Peter Martyr, and Azabaro of Pedro de 
Ledesma. This one example will suffice to show the latitude enjoyed 
by the contemporary chroniclers in the matter of geographical names. 
The list of variations might be still further extended. 



442 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

A single day's sail brought the squadron to a group of 
islands guarding the entrance to a great bay. This, accord- 
ing to the guides, was the region Carambaru,^ and the vessels 
passed into the quiet lagoon and dropped anchor. The 
ships' boats visited the islands, secured a few golden orna- 
ments by barter, and returned with the report that a little 
further along yet greater riches would be found. Accord- 
ingly, on the same day, the vessels got under way, thread- 
ing channels so narrow that oftentimes the spars and rigging 
were swept by overhanging trees, and rounded a point beyond 
which the land-locked waters expanded into an immense 
lake, studded with highly cultivated and well-peopled islets. 
This gulf was called Aburena by the Indian guides, although 
it practically formed with Carambarii Bay the great connect- 
ing lagoon which we call by the name of Chiriqui. Here the 
Admiral spent several days, confined to his bed, but listening 
with eager interest to the reports brought him by Don Bar- 
tholomew and the other captains who explored all parts of 
the beautiful sound and the adjacent mainland. They found 
the natives supplied with golden trinkets in greater pro- 
fusion than they had before seen. Almost every adult wore 
the grotesque figure of some beast or bird, or a heavy medal, 
hanging from his neck, while necklaces, armlets, and coro- 
nets were equally plentiful. Under the guileless urging of 
the Cariay guides, the Indians of Carambarii and Aburena 
jostled one another in their anxiety to exchange their vulgar 
baubles for the rare treasures of Castile, and in the compe- 
tition, ornaments weighing a quarter of a pound and even 
more of solid gold were bartered for a few needles or two 
or three little hawk- bells. At one spot, — so Pedro de 
Ledesma, one of the Admiral's pilots, affirms, — eighty 
canoes were gathered about the ships at one time, their 
occupants bent upon securing a share of the wonderful 
objects offered by the white men. So little store did they 
set by the yellow stuff that they did not hesitate to tell the 
strangers that it could be had in still greater abundance by 
simply continuing on along the coast. In this the Cariay 
guides concurred, intimating that although their own tribe 
1 The " Admiral's Bay " of modern maps. 



ANTICIPATING MAGELLAN. 443 

drew its supply of jewelry from these two lagoons, they 
were aware that the metal was found more plentifully a little 
more to the eastward, and they named half a dozen locali- 
ties where, they said, the Spaniards should go. Among the 
uncouth sounds which represented these several goals two 
were more distinctly caught than the others, Veragua and 
Cobija. The former seemed to be considered the district 
of chief importance on the whole coast, and the latter to be 
the end either of navigation or of the gold — which, was not 
plain. 

Under this incentive the Admiral resumed his voyage, 
taking with him two of the Aburenians as additional guides. 
Passing out of the lagoons into the open sea, he found 
the coast-line, which had been running uniformly south 
since he left Cape Gracias a Dios, now trended due east, 
and the country inland seemed increasingly rough and 
mountainous. The winds and currents were more adverse 
than before, twenty-five miles was considered a good day's 
progress, and tTie rains fell without intermission. Notwith- 
standing these drawbacks, the squadron forged along, the 
boats being sent to examine every river-mouth and trade 
with every village, with a result on the whole encouraging. 
The seamen had become infected with the trader's spirit, 
and felt aggrieved when a native settlement failed to yield 
its dozen or score of golden pieces. As a rule, the Indians 
showed a readiness to receive the white men ; at only one 
place, a river near Aburena, did they offer resistance, and 
then, although well armed with savage weapons, they con- 
tented themselves with beating drums, sounding conch- 
shells, spitting and splashing the sea-water towards the 
intruders. A cannon-shot over their heads, and a bolt sent 
from a cross-bow through the arm of one of the most 
aggressive of their number, put an end to this mild exhibi- 
tion of independence. Duraba, Cativa, Hurira, Cobrava, 
— these are some of the names given by the inhabitants to 
their hamlets, streams, or districts lying eastward from the 
great lagoon. The Spaniards were, in fact, creeping labori- 
ously along the jungle-bordered shore which stretches from 
Chiriqui along the Isthmus of Panama. At the mouth of 



444 ^^^ Z^5r VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the Veragua River, or in its vicinity, they obtained, accord- 
ing to Pedro de Ledesma, ninety marks — upwards of forty 
pounds' weight — of gold in exchange for three dozen Httle 
copper bells. A few leagues beyond, they reached the coun- 
try called Cobija, and here the four native guides proclaimed 
that the gold ended ; beyond was nothing to be had worth 
the taking. The appearance of the people, who differed 
little from those of Paria, bore out the assertion, for golden 
ornaments were as rare among them as they had been com- 
mon farther up the coast. Before continuing his search for 
the strait, the Admiral proposed to send Don Bartholomew 
into the interior of the Veragua country, whence, the guides 
declared, came all the gold which had been seen along the 
coast ; but the evening before this expedition was to land 
so violent a gale arose that he was forced to stand out to 
sea for security. As soon as he dared approach land, he 
fought his way along-shore in search of a harbor. About 
thirty miles beyond the Chagres ^ he found an ideal haven, 
protected against the easterly gales by a cape and several 
small islands. Anchoring here, he was forced to wait ten 
days before daring to leave port, during which time the gales 
and torrential rains continued unceasingly. The beauty of 
the harbor, with its orderly Indian village nestling among 
the forests and clearings, was such that even the gloomy 
weather could not destroy its charm, and he christened it 
Puerto Bello, — a name made famous in succeeding years 
through the exploits of the Buccaneers. The persistence of 
violent storms, and the doubtful safety of turning from his 
main object during their continuance, soon led the Admiral 
to abandon his intended investigation of the mines of Vera- 
gua. " I looked upon them as already secured," are his 
own words ; as in the case of Cuba, Jamaica, and Paria, 
having made the main discovery, he would leave to others 
the exploration of their secrets. So when, on the 9th of 
November, the storm moderated, he weighed anchor, and 
again attempted to run to the eastward. After making thirty 
miles of perilous navigation, he abandoned the attempt and 
turned back to a port some fifteen miles farther east than 
1 Called Rio de los Lagartos — Alligator River — by the Admiral. 



ANTICIPATING MAGELLAN. 445 

his last anchorage. The general cultivation of the islands 
and coast about this new harbor suggested the name of 
Bastimentos, — provisions, — and so the Admiral called it; 
but we know it better as Nombre de Dios, the famous point 
of departure for the homeward bound treasure galleons of 
the Spanish kings. For two weeks the now battered squad- 
ron lay weather-bound. At the end of that time, although 
the storms had not entirely ceased, the ships again essayed 
to make head against the combined strength of the winds 
and currents. This time sixty miles of coast were painfully 
passed, and the ships had nearly reached the modern Cape 
San Bias -^ when the forces against which they were strug- 
gling gained the mastery, and literally drove them back. 
Running for Bastimentos, the Admiral hove to off a narrow 
inlet under the lee of San Bias where there was promise 
of nearer shelter. Soundings showed a safe, if intricate, 
entrance, and here the ships were, with difficulty, brought 
to anchor in the diminutive basin. From its cramped 
dimensions the Admiral called the spot El Retrete, — the 
Cabinet, — but our charts designate it as Escribanos. The 
neighborhood was thickly populated by a tribe of Indians 
who resented the freedom of the Spanish sailors, and some 
preliminary skirmishes led to the use, in self-defence, of 
the white men's fire-arms. It was the first time on this 
voyage that the Admiral had permitted the use of force. 
Although he had touched at more villages than on any other 
of his voyages, except the first, so far not a native had been 
harmed except the man wounded near Aburena by a sailor 
acting without orders. But at this anchorage of El Retrete 
the vessels lay so close to the bank that the Indians could 
have set them on fire without serious trouble, and as soon 
as the savages showed hostility, — whether justified or not, 
— it was imperatively necessary that they should be held 
at arm's length. The situation of the Spaniards was becom- 

1 Called by the Admiral, Cape Marmol, or Marble, from a stuccoed 
house or temple visible from the ships. As the only stone edifice thus 
far seen in the Indies, he attached much importance to it, going so far 
as to obtain a fragment of its material to substantiate his statements 
regarding it. 



446 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

ino- sufficiently grave without running the risk of losing their 
ships in port. 

For fifteen days the Admiral remained in wearisome idle- 
ness " for so the cruel weather demanded," as he says. 
Himself, the ships, and all on board were " thoroughly worn 
out." Discouraged by the fatal loss of time to which he 
was subjected, persuaded that it was useless to hope for 
more favorable weather for an indefinite time, his active 
temperament would not support the enforced restraint of 
his present situation. He had "thought to have finished 
with it [the stormy season] and found himself but begin- 
ning." " In order to do something, until the weather should 
permit me to put out to sea and continue my voyage," he 
says, " I reconsidered my decision not to return to the 
mines." Since the continuous gales from east and north- 
east barred his passage in the direction he wished to take, 
he should use them to carry him back to Veragua and spend 
his time in exploring that region, rather than do nothing. 
On the 5 th of December, therefore, he set out from the 
Cabinet and steered west, counting on his former adver- 
saries of the air and sea to serve his altered purpose. For 
a paltry fifteen miles they favored him, and then, with the 
fickleness which has made them rivals in inconstancy, the 
wind veered to the west and fell upon him with pitiless fury. 
It is no small matter when the foremost seaman of his time 
declares that he then experienced the most terrible tempest 
of a long life passed at sea, and his report of it is not so 
long as to be wearisome. 

" For nine days I wandered as one lost," he writes. " without 
hope of salvation. Never have eyes seen the sea so high and 
ugly, or so much foam. The wind was not available for making 
headway, and did not permit us to nm for any shelter. There I 
was, held in that sea turned into blood and seething like a 
cauldron upon a huge fire. So awesome a sky was never seen ; 
for a day and a night it blazed like a furnace, vomiting forth 
sheets and bolts of lightning until, after each one. I looked to 
see whether it had not carried away my masts and sails. With 
such frightful fury they fell upon us that we all believed the 
ships would founder. During the whole time the water never 
ceased falling from the skies : not in what would be called rain, 



ANTICIPATING MAGELLAN. 



447 



but rather as though another Deluge were upon us. My people 
were aheady so worn out that they courted death, to be free 
from such continued martyrdom. The ships, for the second 
time, lost boats, anchors, cables, and sails, and were leaking. 
When it was our Lord's pleasure I sought Puerto Gordo, ^ and 
there repaired as well as I could.'' 

The situation of the squadron was, in simple truth, des- 
perate. The men were broken down by the perpetual strug- 
gle for their lives, poisoned by the fevers common to those 
unhealthy shores in the wet season, and disheartened by 
the Admiral's apparent determination to turn his back on 
the golden coasts just skirted, and, at the first opportunity, 
resume the wearisome search for a strait which, when 
found, would only lead them into new perils. Under the 
influence of constant dampness and heat the provisions had 
spoiled, so that those among the crews who were not blessed 
with strong stomachs ground their biscuit into a paste with 
water, baked it and swallowed the mess at night to avoid 
seeing their food. Others, of stouter nerves, ate their 
rations as they came, " for to pick out the worms would be 
to lose the supper," as is pithily explained. All hands were 
glad to eat the meat of the huge sharks which abounded in 
those seas, and had at first been regarded with terror and 
loathing. The ships themselves were racked by the storms, 
and began to be riddled by the teredo from their protracted 
sojourns in landlocked harbors. Finally, the unprecedented 
violence and persistence of furious gales and head currents 
caused the stoutest hearts to lose courage. It was contrary 
to all experience, even to those who had been most in the 
new western seas. A month had been passed in making 
the 300 miles from Caxinas to Gracias d Dios. Ten weeks 
had been needed to cover the 700 miles from the latter to 
the Cabinet, near Cape San Bias. Small wonder that the 
seamen should ascribe such unheard-of perils to the machi- 

^ The other accounts say this was the Porto Bello already visited, 
but Ferdinand Columbus distinguishes it as Huiva, says it was a long 
and narrow inlet, and that the natives there /wed in huts built in the 
trees. The latter remark is significant when compared with Vespucci's 
story of his first voyage. 



448 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

nations of the Evil One. To them all the last day seemed 
to have come, when, during the gale described by the 
Admiral, the ships found themselves, on the 13th of Decem- 
ber, in a devil's dance of waterspouts, any one of which 
would have swept their little barks oif the ocean as a broom 
sweeps chips. With one voice the affrighted sailors joined 
their commander in reciting the Gospel of St. John — that 
sovereign remedy against the arts of Beelzebub at sea — 
and when, at the sound of its opening verses, the huge pil- 
lars of whirling water drew into the lowering clouds above 
and the frothing seas below, they knew that the hand of 
Satan was in all they had suffered.^ 

At the first indication of fair weather, on the 20th of 
December, the squadron put to sea and headed up the coast 
for Veragua. Wind and current, which for ninety days had 
been favorable for this course, now opposed it. The almanac 
marked an approaching opposition of Saturn, and the Admiral 
put back into Porto Bello to await it. " I did not dare to 
encounter it," he declares, "in so wild a sea upon a danger- 
ous coast, for it generally brings a gale or stormy weather. 
This was on Christmas Day, at mass-time. I returned again 
to the place from which I had come with so much toil ; and, 
after the New Year was past, turned once more to the 
struggle, — for such it was, although I now had fair weather 
for my voyage, — ■ since my vessels were unseaworthy and the 
people sick and dying." This time the squadron attained 
the shores of Veragua, coming to anchor on Epiphany, the 
6th of January, 1503, at the mouth of the river Yebra, a 
few miles east of Veragua River. From the event which 
the day commemorated, the Admiral called his new refuge 
Belen, or Bethlehem, and here he decided to remain while 
he investigated the " secrets " of the land which was reputed 
to contain such wealth of gold. He looked on his arrival as 
providential. " Our Lord guided me to a river with a safe 
harbor," he writes, "albeit there were but ten palms [eighty 
inches] of water in the channel. I entered with difficulty, 

1 Ferdinand Columbus adds that his father made the sign of the 
cross and drew an imaginary circle in the air with his sword. 



ANTICIPA TING MA CELL AN. 



449 



and the next day the tempest again arose. Had I been 
outside, I could not have got in by reason of the bar." 

Just ten years before, at the same hohday season, he had 
found himself, a shipwrecked outcast, dependent upon the 
generosity of King Guacanagari for the lives of himself and 
his men. Before he saw the last of Belen the early scenes 
at Navidad were destined to be reproduced with striking 
similarity. 




XXII. 

AN INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 

COLUMBUS had not yet abandoned his project of finding 
a passage into the eastern seas ; his return to Veragua 
was partly a concession to the grumbUng wishes of his ex- 
hausted men and partly a plan to spend the stormy season 
in gathering information concerning the wealthiest region it 
had yet been his fortune to discover. The condition of his 
ships, bad as it was, was not beyond repair ; a few weeks of 
active work in port would make them seaworthy and recu- 
perate his men ; native provisions could be secured in 
abundance for future operations, and, despite its ominous 
beginning, the voyage carried to a successful end. With 
every respite from the harassing cares of navigation, his 
mind instinctively turned to the problem of the strait, and 
he pieced together each scrap of what seemed to him evi- 
dence of its existence, until he was firmly persuaded, that, 
whether he reached it or not, a way was open by sea to the 
lands of spice and ivory. So far as he had yet seen, this 
region of Veragua was the centre of riches and intelligence 
for the whole coast along which he had passed. It was so 
regarded by the tribes both to the north and to the east. 
Half-understood hints had been given by his native inform- 
ants of strange peoples and products in the interior, as well 
as of treasure passing belief, and he hoped that a march 
inland would reveal, at least, some of these "secrets." As 
he gazed at the towering mountain ranges which showed 
their summits far in the interior during the latter half of his 
course, he dreamed of Zayton and Cathay, of Ciamba and 
450 



AiV INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 45 I 

Farther India. " The people of whom Pope Pius the Second 
wrote," he concluded, " have been found, judging by the 
country and its indications ; but not the horses with their 
trappings and curbs of gold. This is not surprising, for they 
are not needed in these lands along the seashore, where 
only fisher-folk dwell." As yet he had not formulated a 
formal conception of the geography of the country before 
him ; it was merely some unlocated border-land of the 
mysterious Orient, as Cuba, Hayti, and Paria had each 
been in turn. 

He did not purpose devoting a great deal of time to the 
investigation of Veragua ; important as it was in comparison 
with adjoining territories, he had little hope of reaching the 
seats of eastern civilization by an overland journey. The 
only true route was by sea, through the strait. In order, 
therefore, to hasten the work of exploration, he sent his 
brother with a party to visit the King or Quebi^ of the dis- 
trict, who, he learned, lived in a village on the neighboring 
river of Veragua, some distance from its mouth. Don 
Bartholomew went around by sea, in the ships' boats, to 
that stream, and was met by the King at its entrance with 
much apparent cordiality. After an exchange of gifts, in 
which the Spaniards lost nothing, savages and white men 
went their separate homeward ways. The next day the 
King visited the Spanish ships lying in the Belen, and passed 
an hour in not particularly edifying intercourse. To all ap- 
pearances the best of relations were now established between 
the natives and their visitors. The inhabitants of the sur- 
rounding country flocked to the anchorage to verify the 
marvels which they had heard concerning the newcomers, 
and a steady traffic arose with fish, provisions, and golden 
ornaments on the one side, and needles, broken looking- 
glass, and bells on the other as the staples of trade. But 
Belen was not Veragua, and all accounts united in maintain- 
ing that the source of gold was to be found among the 
mountains of the latter region. When his ships and men 

1 Irving and others use this as the chiefs name. Peter Martyr 
quotes the Admiral himself as saying that Quehi and Tibi were native 
titles equal to the cacique of the Hispaniola tribes. 



452 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

were in somewhat better condition than at the time of their 
arrival, the Admiral prepared to move his squadron nearer 
to the much-discussed district. A sudden rise in the river 
on the night of the 24th of January, caused by some cloud- 
burst up country, parted the cables of his flagship, drove her 
so violently against one of the smaller ships that the latter 
lost a mast, and sent them both whirling down stream until 
they brought up, sadly the worse for the experience, against 
a friendly bank. More serious even than the effect on the 
vessels was that upon the bar at the river's mouth. Here, 
between the sand brought down by the swollen stream and 
that thrown up by the sea, the channel was so shallowed 
that any egress for the squadron was impracticable for the 
time being. There was nothing to do but again repair 
damages and wait for a new channel to form. 

Such of my readers whose fortune it has been to lie fever- 
stricken in the stuffy cabin of a small vessel, at anchor in 
some mangrove-fringed, swamp-surrounded tropical bay dur- 
ing the rainy season, with imperious duty calling elsewhere 
and an immovable obstacle chaining them in their rain- 
sodden situation, may be able to picture the Admiral's plight. 
We doubt if others can. Helpless himself, he sent Don 
Bartholomew to make another and more thorough explora- 
tion of the neighboring interior. Setting out on the 6th of 
February, nothing daunted by the torrential rains which 
have since given the Isthmus such a melancholy fame, the 
stalwart Adelantado went around by sea to the Veragua 
River and rowed up it to the King's village. Here he was 
hospitably received, and on announcing his purpose was 
furnished with three guides, who, the King was understood 
to say, would show him the principal mines. For two days 
the party followed the course of the stream towards its 
source in the mountains. Few of the Spaniards were likely 
ever to forget that first ascent of the mountains of Costa 
Rica. A hint of their experience is given in the statement 
that they crossed the river forty-three times ; but the struggle 
with the vine-tangled, thorny jungle, the blind stumbling 
over slippery roots and rotten trunks, the wading through 
marshes and dank, fern-grown bogs — all these are passed 



AN INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 453 

over in silence, although together they more than doubled 
the distance. On the third day the column reached a sum- 
mit, whence an extended prospect was afforded as far as the 
sight could reach. All that territory was full of mines, the 
guides proclaimed ; at the end of twenty days' journey toward 
the west the traveller would still be among them. The 
names of many villages and districts renowned for their 
riches were given, and to prove the productiveness of the 
earth, the Indians showed the Spaniards how the gold could 
be found among the roots of the very trees under which 
they stood. The mere hint was enough, and for four hours 
the eager sailors dug up the soft forest mould, and washed the 
soil beneath it in the adjoining stream, until every man had 
his little store of shining grains. At the end of that time Don 
Bartholomew started homeward, more than content with his 
investigations. There would be no lack of witnesses as to 
the wealth of Veragua. The fact, subsequently learned, 
that the wily chief had ordered his guides to lead the white 
men beyond his own borders, and show them the mines of a 
rival with whom he preferred they should deal, did not affect 
the main question. The whole country was full of the metal. 
His brother's report, and the enthusiastic affirmations of 
the men accompanying him, persuaded the Admiral that 
regions of such fabulous wealth ought to be held for. the 
Crown without further ceremony, and he began to revolve 
in his mind the advisability of estabhshing a garrison at a 
convenient point to continue explorations and assert the 
dominion of Castile. Whether this idea was the fruit of 
some direct suggestion made by his brother and his other 
lieutenants, or was due to his doubts as to the possibility of 
extricating his ships from their imprisonment, or, finally, 
was but an application of a predetermined policy to leave a 
colony at any place of supreme importance which he might 
discover, does not appear. It is evident that, knowing the 
disposition of King Ferdinand, he counted upon the tidings 
of such a brilliant annexation condoning for any failure 
which might ultimately attend the chief object of his voy- 
age. With a view to resolving the practicability of the 
plan, he once more sent Don Bartholomew upon a reconnois- 



454 ^^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

sance which had for its particular object the investigation 
of the country beyond Veragua, and its relative desirability 
as the site for a colony in comparison with the latter and 
Belen. Taking with him fifty-nine men, and sending a boat 
with fourteen more along the coast, Don Bartholomew 
marched along the seashore to Hurira, twenty or twenty- 
five miles beyond Veragua. On approaching the chief 
town of the district he was met by the King and people, 
who welcomed the Spaniards with hearty hospitality. Dur- 
ing the day the chief of the adjoining region of Dururi 
appeared with a number of his tribe, anxious to exchange 
their gold for the white men's trinkets. From all the 
Indians the same tale was heard ; gold was everywhere to 
be had ; but it was found in the greatest plenty in the mines 
of this, that, or the other " King " somewhere in the interior. 
One variation there was, that in a certain territory the war- 
riors were armed Uke the Spaniards ; but what wandering 
story, drifting canoe-borne from distant Cuba or Hispaniola, 
this might have for its basis, Don Bartholomew did not 
trouble himself to inquire. Encouraged by the friendliness 
of his hosts, and the obvious abundance of the desired 
metal, he decided to penetrate still farther inland. Dis- 
missing one-half of his men to return overland to the 
ships, he continued his journey with the remainder. At a 
settlement called Cobrava by the natives he found less gold, 
but vast plantations of maize extending for several miles.^ 
From here he passed to Catiba, where he obtained a goodly 
quantity of gold in barter, and so, rejoining his boat, returned 
to the Admiral. 

Don Bartholomew's report was that there was no harbor 
along the coast which offered greater advantage than that of 
Belen, and orders were accordingly given to make prepara- 
tions for a permanent settlement on an elevation near the 
river's mouth. A storehouse was first built, in which were 
deposited the artillery and ammunition, provisions, ship- 
stores, and trading goods destined for the use and protec- 

1 Ferdinand Columbus says that cornfields extended for 6 leagues 
(24 miles). Either he is misrepresented or his uncle was a poor judge 
of distances by land. 



AN INACCESSIBLE OCEAN 455 

tion of the garrison. Around this central edifice eight cabins 
were erected for the accommodation of the men. Don Bar- 
tholomew was appointed to command the colony and 80 
men — more than one-half of the Admiral's entire force — 
were detailed to remain with him. His own vessel was also 
to be left in the harbor, to serve in future explorations along 
the coast, or for an asylum in emergency, and on this, for 
greater security, the more perishable stores, such as wine, oil, 
vinegar, cheese, and the like were carried. Throughout the 
whole period of construction the Indians were observing 
the labors of the white men with a close attention which 
aroused the latter's suspicion. To propitiate their friend- 
ship the Admiral distributed gifts with liberality, and espe- 
cially gave their King many presents of the sort most highly 
prized by savages. All these were accepted in seeming good 
part, but there was an undercurrent of dissatisfaction visible 
in all their actions. Large numbers of canoes were seen 
passing by the mouth of the river, going always in the direc- 
tion of Veragua, and although the natives explained that 
these were on their way to join the Indians of that region in 
an expedition against the King of Cobrava, the Spaniards 
felt that the movement was more likely to be directed against 
themselves. To solve the doubt Diego Mendez, the squad- 
ron's notary, volunteered to take a boat and follow some of 
the canoes until their destination was discovered. He soon 
returned to report that he had come upon a large force of 
well-equipped warriors, numbering a thousand or more, gath- 
ered on the seashore between the two rivers, who, in answer 
to his frank offer to join them with his own comrades in 
fighting the Cobravans, showed such unwillingness, that he 
was convinced that their real objective was the Spanish 
squadron and the village at Belen. This alarming intelli- 
gence was not wholly credited by the Admiral, and to allay 
all doubt Mendez undertook, with a single companion — 
Rodrigo de Escobar, a seaman from Don Bartholomew's 
ship — to make a more extended scout. Following the 
beach on foot, the two men reached the mouth of the 
Veragua without adventure ; but there they encountered two 
canoes with Indians of some other tribe, who warned them 



456 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

that in two days the Veraguans and their aUies intended 
to fall upon the Spaniards and destroy their ships and 
houses. Mendez tried to bribe these men to carry him up 
the river to the King's town, that he might investigate for 
himself, and after much persuasion they yielded, protesting, 
however, that the whole party would be killed on sight. On 
reaching the town Mendez pretended to be a surgeon, come 
to heal a wound in the King's leg from which he was known 
to be suffering. Under the influence of a handful of bells and 
needles, he was guided to the camp, which was situated on a 
hill-top some distance away. Here he found the King oc- 
cupying a hut on one side of an open square or place, around 
which were disposed the heads of 300 of the enemies killed 
in battle by his warriors. Not a whit disconcerted, Mendez 
pushed his way to the door of the King's lodging, where he 
was met by the latter's son, and thrust violently away with 
many threats of worse treatment in store. Even the exhibi- 
tion of a pot of ointment and the repetition of the fiction 
about the wounded leg failed to make any impression ; but 
when Mendez calmly seated himself, drew a comb, scissors, 
and looking-glass from his pocket, and directed Escobar to 
trim and dress his hair, the belligerent youth and all about 
him fell under the spell and besought the white men to 
barber them as well. The gift of the marvellous implements 
ended all unpleasantness, and, after informing themselves of 
all that was going on, the two Spaniards made their way 
back to their canoe and Belen.^ 

Convinced now of the danger of an immediate attack by 
the savages, the Admiral took measures to anticipate it. On 
the 30th of March Don Bartholomew started from Belen 
with 74 men, marched across country to Veragua, and posting 
his force near by presented himself with but five men before 
the King's hut. The King was taken by surprise, but allowed 
Don Bartholomew to approach on condition that the other 
Spaniards remained at a distance. Under pretence of caring 

^ The relation of Diego Mendez of this, and of his still more redoubt- 
able feat of the next year, is entitled to rank with the Mexican story of 
Bernal Diaz de Castillo, among the most delightful pieces of honest 
vanity in any language. 



AN INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 457 

for the King's wounded leg, Don Bartholomew ran his hand 
over it and then felt his pulse. Suddenly closing his hand 
with an iron grip about the King's wrist, he beckoned his 
nearest men to fire a musket as a signal for the main force. 
In a few moments the whole body was on the ground, and 
the King, with his wives and children and many of the prin- 
cipal men, was a prisoner. A hurried march back to Belen 
was made, and the captives sent on board the four ships for 
greater security. Night had fallen when the transfer was 
made, and in the darkness the King, who had induced his 
sympathetic guard to loosen his bonds a little, succeeded in 
slipping out of the boat and swimming ashore. Pursuit was 
useless, and the Spaniards had to content themselves as best 
they might with the capture of the King's household and 
treasure. The latter was not very imposing, being valued at 
no more than 300 ducats, which was divided in due propor- 
tion between the Crown and the members of the raiding 
party, being treated as prize money and not as the result of 
a commercial bargain. Without its chief spoil, the impor- 
tance of the foray shrank into narrow compass. The tactics 
displayed were merely a repetition of those employed in 
Hispaniola towards Caonabo and Guarionex a few years 
before. Had the King been secured, some permanent ad- 
vantage might have resulted. As it was, the attempt to 
seize him only precipitated a catastrophe which was poorly 
compensated by a few pounds' weight of barbaric gold. 

For the moment, all danger from the Indians seemed to 
be past. Don Bartholomew felt entirely able to cope with 
any future attempt that might be made against his garrison, 
since he had nearly eighty well-armed men under his com- 
mand, a number of lombards or small cannon, and abun- 
dance of ammunition, while the caravel that was to be left 
him was an additional protection. Under these circum- 
stances, when the Admiral was informed, one day early in 
April, that the swollen river had scoured a channel through 
the bar, he instantly decided to get his own vessels out into 
the deep water beyond, before the new passage should again 
shoal up. He had been anxiously awaiting such an oppor- 
tunity for over two months, and now that the garrison was 



458 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

provided for, he felt no hesitation in withdrawing his three 
caravels from the river in order to be free to pursue his voy- 
age. It was not an easy task to get the ships over the bar 
and through the breakers, but it was accomplished in com- 
parative safety. The Admiral and his men remarked with 
much misgiving that the teredo had been busily at work 
during the long season the squadron had lain in the river, 
and that the hulls were riddled far more than had been 
thought ; but so long as they rode at anchor in a compara- 
tively smooth sea the extent of the damage was not apparent. 
Most of the men of the garrison had come out with the ships 
to help in warping them over the bar, or to take leave of 
their messmates, and Don Bartholomew was left on shore 
with only about twenty companions. It does not appear 
that it was the Admiral's intention to leave Belen at once ; 
the intimation is that he expected to lie outside for several 
days before getting under way. His new position was at 
a distance of several miles from the little settlement of new 
cabins, too far to see what was passing there, and hence, 
when Pedro Tristan, the captain of the flagship, proposed 
taking a couple of boats with a dozen men and re-crossing 
the bar to get fresh water from the springs up-stream, and 
salt from the storehouse, no reason existed for objection. 
The boats rowed away, passed the breakers in safety, and 
that was the last the Admiral saw of captain or men. Ten 
days of suspense and distress were to pass before he learned 
the cause of their disappearance. 

It is strange that a veteran of Don Bartholomew's long 
and arduous experience — so much of it, too, with the sav- 
ages of the New World — should have been willing to neglect 
the commonest precautions for the safety of his command 
at Belen. Surrounded on three sides by a jungle which 
would veil an army stationed within twenty yards of its 
border, he had not a picket posted or a scout in the forest. 
Doubtless his contempt for the feebleness of the natives was 
the reason ; but it was a poor one for so good a soldier. In 
this case he had to deal with an active and untiring foe, who 
had the patience to wait for his opportunity, and the courage 
to strike quickly and hard. The Indians, ever since the 



AN INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 



459 



escape of their chief, had, it now appeared, been watching 
the movements of the Christians from the adjoining forests. 
They had noiselessly gathered together a force of several 
hundred warriors, who were concealed within a convenient 
distance. When they saw three of the great white-sailed 
canoes passing out of the river with so large a part of the 
strangers' force, the savages thought their chance had come, 
and, breaking from their shelter of vines and trees, poured 
a rain of javelins and arrows upon Don Bartholomew's little 
band, and then rushed to close quarters with their huge 
wooden swords. The Spaniards rallied together and met 
the attack with that cheerful courage which leads one to for- 
give them so much. In a few moments the Veraguans had 
learned what the Hispaniolans could have told them, that 
the only safe Spaniard to handle was a dead one, and, 
leaving a number of dead on the ground, they took refuge in 
the bush. As several of the whites were wounded, including 
Don Bartholomew, who had a javelin through the chest, 
they did not venture to pursue the Indians, but kept up a 
discharge of cross-bow and arquebuse in reply to the sav- 
ages' missiles. At this juncture, Pedro Tristan and his two 
boats appeared, slowly making their way up stream. In an- 
swer to the hail of their besieged comrades they drew near 
shore, but would render no help ; Tristan asserting that if 
he allowed them to come aboard they would swamp his craft 
and all be lost, in which event the Admiral would be exposed 
to imminent peril also, as he was short of boats. Nor 
would the obstinate captain come ashore and take a hand 
in the fight, alleging that his orders were to get fresh water 
for the vessels out at sea, and he could take no risks. The 
utmost he would do was to promise to fill his casks as quickly 
as possible, and hasten back to the Admiral with a report of 
the garrison's plight. In order to do this quickly, he pro- 
posed rowing up the river until he reached a point where 
the water was fresh ; but the Spaniards on shore warned him 
not to venture so far, as the woods were filled with the native 
warriors. Nothing moved, Tristan held to his determina- 
tion, and started off. The next day, a solitary sailor, badly 
wounded, came into the little settlement and announced 



460 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

that he was the only survivor of the stubborn captain's party. 
The Indians had attacked them at a narrow part of the 
river, overvvhehned them from the banks with arrows and 
darts, killed twelve out of the thirteen in the boats, and then 
broken these to pieces in sheer ferocity. The Spaniards, 
when they saw they were trapped, fought like men, even 
when covered with wounds. Tristan was no coward, and 
directed the defence with the same pertinacity he showed in 
other matters, until a javelin pierced through an eye into his 
brain. The survivor had escaped through the jungle, having 
dived overboard when the resistance was failing, and swum 
under water to a safe distance before taking to land. A 
little later on his story was confirmed, when the corpses of 
some of the luckless Spaniards came drifting down with the 
current, each with its billet of loathsome buzzards wrangling 
over their novel feast. 

This disaster involved far more than the lives which were 
lost. The garrison had no boats capable of passing the 
heavy surf on the bar, and they knew that the Admiral 
had few left by which he could communicate with them. 
Flushed with their victory over Tristan and his crews, the 
Indians redoubled their efforts to exterminate the handful 
of Spaniards opposing them, and for four days the harassing 
contest was maintained. At the end of that time the ex- 
hausted defenders resolved to abandon the settlement, and 
pass to the opposite bank of the river, where a broad, sandy 
beach would enable them to keep out of range of the native 
missiles — unless the savages left the shelter of the woods, 
which they were not likely to do. A more effective measure 
would have been to take refuge on their caravel and run 
outside to join the Admiral ; but some change of wind or 
current had again choked the channel on the bar, so that 
egress and entrance were alike impracticable. With the 
help of several canoes the more important supplies were 
transferred to the new site, and with the aid of the casks 
and bales a rude breastwork was erected. Here several 
days passed without especial incident, communication be- 
tween the shore and the squadron outside being absolutely 
cut off by the heavy surf on the bar. 



AN INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 46 1 

At the end of ten days of suspense, relief came to the 
garrison in a manner little to be expected. The long ab- 
sence of Tristan, and of all news from the garrison, bore 
heavily upon the Admiral's mind. Attacked just at that 
juncture with an unusually prostrating fever, he was de- 
pressed by the gloomiest forebodings at a time when he 
was least fitted to cope energetically with the difficulties 
besetting him. Only a couple of boats remained to his 
squadron ; if he were to send them ashore and they were 
lost on the bar, all on board his vessels would be helpless in 
the event of disaster overtaking their ships. In the condition 
in which these were, with the necessity of putting into port 
frequently, whatever course he might pursue after leaving 
Belen, the possession of seaworthy small boats was a matter 
of life and death. There seemed no alternative, conse- 
quently, but to wait until the bar was passable ; but the 
delay was maddening. The unlucky Veraguans, who had 
been confined in the ship's hold ever since Don Bartholo- 
mew's raid and their King's escape, furnished the solution. 
One night, a number of the strongest heaped the ballast into 
a pile under the hatch, and, pressing on this, by a concerted 
movement gave it a mighty push, and threw it over on the 
deck with the sleeping sentinels lying on it. In a second, 
the most active among the Indians were overboard and 
swimming for shore, while their less fortunate companions 
were back in the hold with the hatch securely battened 
down above them. By the morning they had all hanged 
themselves from the deck-beams in their despair, holding 
their feet up from the planking so as to have room to 
stretch their poor necks ; and this was the end of their part 
in the tragedy. But Pedro de Ledesma, the pilot, saw no 
reason why the Spaniards should not attempt as much to 
relieve their insupportable situation as the savages had 
risked for liberty, and he volunteered to swim over the bar 
if the Admiral would grant permission. This was given 
with hearty words of gratitude for the offer, and the Admiral 
ordered one of the remaining boats to row as near as was 
safe to the bar and then leave the rest to Ledesma's pluck 
and endurance. The anchorage was nearly four miles dis- 



462 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

tant from the bar, and it is a question whether the Spanish 
pilot could have accomplished the whole undertaking, but 
with the long swim shortened he felt no fear as to the result. 
When the broken water was reached, he plunged overboard, 
and, after a few minutes of alternate quiet and struggle, was 
seen to emerge safely on the beach beyond. The boat waited 
for his return, and in due time he reappeared, repeated his 
daring feat and brought to the Admiral a full report of the 
condition of the garrison and the events of the past ten 
days. The men of the garrison, he said, wavered between 
flat mutiny and supplication ; they begged the Admiral not 
to sail without them, but to wait until the bar was quiet 
enough to permit them to escape in canoes ; if he did not, 
they declared, they would take their own ship and sail 
wherever the wind carried them, and upon the Admiral's 
head would He the consequences. In the face of such a 
posture of affairs, it was useless to continue the project of 
colonization. The full strength proposed for the garrison 
was sufficient to maintain it in security against any probable 
native attack in the future ; but nothing was to be expected 
from a disaffected body of men in a hostile country. Their 
fate would merely be that of the men of Navidad ten years 
before. The Admiral accordingly sent orders to Don 
Bartholomew — by whom is not stated — to retire from 
the settlement as soon as the state of the bar allowed. In 
a week the sea had fallen so as to permit a safe passage. 
Under the intelhgent direction of Diego Mendez, the garri- 
son canoes were lashed together after the fashion of cata- 
marans, and, in six or seven trips, the arms, ammunition, and 
more important stores were safely transferred to the squad- 
ron. The " Gallego " was stripped and left inside the river ; 
the doughty Mendez, with five companions, spending the last 
night on shore, and being the last to rejoin the squadron. 
Our Lady of Bethlehem, the first European settlement on 
the western continent, was left to the lizards and bats. 

It was while he was lying at anchor off the Belen's mouth, 
consumed with fever and tormented with the sense of his own 
impotency and about the fate of Tristan and the garrison, 
that Columbus had the vivid dream which, under the mis- 



A.V INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 463 

nomer of " vision," has been the subject alternately of 
apology and contempt, according to the individual bias of 
his biographers. With the former sentiment we have 
nothing to do. The man's acts speak for themselves ; if 
they were such as to require apology, no amount of effort 
will change their character. But the charge of hypocrisy and 
melodramatic fraud is one which, when made by apparently 
well-informed pens, is likely to gain creditors. Let us listen 
to the Admiral's own words : — 

"The boats had gone inside for salt and water. The sea 
became high and ugly and did not permit them to get back. 
The Indians were many, and banded together and fought them. 
At last they killed them. My brother and all the other people 
were with one ship which had remained inside. I, very much 
alone, was outside, on that wild coast, with a strong fever, in such 
great grief. All hope of escaping was dead. Painfully I climbed 
to the highest part of the ship, calling in a feeble voice, weeping 
and hurriedly, to the commanders of your Majesties's navy^ in 
all the quarters of the compass for aid, but they answered me 
not at all. Worn out, I fell asleep, moaning. I heard a very 
merciful voice saying : 'Oh, dull and slow to believe and to serve 
thy God, the God of all ! What has He done more for Moses, 
or for David His servant ? Since thou wast born He has ever 
had thee in His special care. When He saw thee at the age 
He thought best, He made thy name to resound marvellously 
throughout the earth. The Indies, which are such a rich part 
of the world, He gave thee for thine own ; thou hast shared them 
as it pleased thee, and He gave thee power for this. Of the 
mysteries of Ocean, which were sealed with such strong chains. 
He gave thee the keys ; and thou hast been obeyed in so many 
lands and hast received from Christians such honorable glory. 
What more did the Most High do for the people of Israel, when 
He brought them out of Egypt ? Or for David, when, from being 
a shepherd, He made him King over India ? Turn, then, to 
Him and confess thine error. His mercy is infinite. Thine old 
age shall not hinder any great thing. He has many vast inheri- 
tances to bestow. Abraham was more than a hundred years 
old when he begot Isaac, and was Sarah a young girl? Thou 

1 Maestros de la guerra de Vnestras Altezas. This seems to be an 
error of the copyist. The act of Columbus, however feeble, was rational 
and voluntary; there would be no pertinency in his summoning to his 
aid the distant navy of Spain. 



464 'i^HE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

callest for a doubtful succor : Answer ; who has afflicted thee so 
much and so often — God, or the World ? The privileges and 
promises which God gives. He does not break ; nor does He say. 
after having received the stipulated service, that His intention 
was not thus and so and that He is to be understood in another 
way ; nor does He inflict sufferings merely to color the exercise 
of power. He deals with scrupulous exactness ; all that He 
promises He fulfils with usury. Is this the common usage ? 
I have said what thy Creator has done for thee and does for all. 
This present moment shows the reward of these anxieties and 
perils which thou hast passed through in serving others.' 

" I, while thus swooned away, heard all ; but had not an answer 
for such true words, except to lament my errors. Whoever it was 
ended by saying, ' Do not fear ; have faith. All these tribulations 
are written in marble, and not without cause.'" 

When the Admiral had this dream he was a physical 
wreck, having been bedridden for almost eight months from 
gout and fever, to which was added, during part of the time, 
the outbreak of an old wound. What difificulties and emer- 
gencies he encountered in this time have been but lightly 
sketched in the preceding pages. If we bear in mind the 
fact that in this feeble condition he had passed through the 
whole of the rainy season on one of the most notoriously 
insalubrious coasts in the world, we shall be able to form an 
adequate idea of his bodily and mental state. A modern 
commander, in similar plight, would be kept under restraint 
by his fleet-surgeon ; Columbus had no medical treatment 
more efficient than that of Master Bernal, the ship's apothe- 
cary, and plain Mark, her blood-letting surgeon-barber, and 
neither of these was likely to attempt any control over a 
High Admiral of Castile. That, in a moment of supreme 
exhaustion and despondency, his ingrained religious bias 
should assert itself predominantly does not seem remark- 
able. To stamp him as an impostor, weakly trying to sway 
the policy of King Ferdinand through the medium of a 
fabricated "vision," is a convenient theory which does not 
square vvith the facts. We have seen him repeatedly 
addressing his sovereigns with a frankness which would be 
startling but for their evident complaisance towards him in 
this respect. Looking upon this dream as a matter of deep 



AN INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 465 

import, he included it in his hasty report from Jamaica, as 
lie did other affairs of interest. " This letter I send by the 
hand and agency of Indians," he wrote, in preparing that 
report in his forlorn Jamaican exile, with not one chance 
in a thousand of leaving it alive ; " a great miracle shall 
it be if it reach you." What a travesty of criticism to 
intimate that he concocted the whole story " to impress 
his sovereigns." 

On Easter evening, towards the end of April, the three 
vessels now composing the squadron weighed anchor and 
again stood along the coast to the eastward, following 
their original course. It soon became apparent that they 
were in no condition to make a protracted voyage in any 
direction. Their hulls were so riddled by the teredo that, 
under the stress of motion, they began to look like sieves. 
Running into Porto Bello an attempt was made to stanch 
the worst leaks ; but the " Vizcaina " proved to be past the 
calkers' art. The flagship and the "Santiago" were scarcely 
more seaworthy ; but nothing remained but to crowd upon 
them the condemned vessel's crew, and leave her to rot in 
the harbor mud.^ The two remaining caravels now con- 
tained the whole expedition, less the seventeen dead and 
plus a few Indians who were being taken to Spain to learn 
the language with a view to possible future settlement of 
their country. From Porto Bello the ships continued along 
the coast, passing Bastimentos and El Retrete without touch- 
ing at either, and rounded Point San Bias in safety. Here 
they entered a group of small islands called by the Admiral 
the Barbas,- where they passed the night at anchor. Still 
keeping the same course, the vessels sailed some forty or 
fifty miles further alongshore to a point not far from the 
modern Cape Tiburon, near the entrance of the Gulf of 
Darien. By this time the condition of the ships was such 
that even the bravest of their crews protested against prose- 

1 Several years later this same harbor proved a haven of refuge to 
Nicuesa, who was guided thither by a former sailor of the Admiral's. 
They found the " Vizcaina's " anchor just where the sailor said it would 
be. 

" The Mulatas Islands of modern charts. 



466 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

cuting the voyage. " All the people were not enough, 
though using pumps, kettles, and casks, to bale out the 
water which was pouring in through the holes made by the 
worms," says stout-hearted Diego Mendez. The Admiral 
called his captains and pilots together, and they unanimously 
advised him to steer for San Domingo without a day's delay. 
Whatever Ovando might have done on their outward voyage, 
he could not, in common humanity, they claimed, refuse 
them an entrance under their present desperate circum- 
stances. Without expressing his own opinion on this point, 
the Admiral concurred in their decision as to the futility 
of any farther exploration. On the ist of May the ships' 
heads were turned northward, and the search for the strait 
was ended. 

Columbus had neither abandoned his belief in the exist- 
ence of the strait, nor did he doubt that he had been within 
almost touching distance of those oriental provinces whose 
attainment had been for so long his chief professional ambi- 
tion. The Indians had certainly referred to a " narrow 
place" of some kind between two seas, and this he — and 
others long after him — understood to be a passage by 
water. His readiness to suspend further exploration was 
not due to any sense of defeat, but to the appalling ravage 
made by the teredo in the timbers of his ships. " The vessels 
were more perforated by the worms than is a honeycomb by 
bees," to apply his own description. Any one who is familiar 
with the extraordinary riddling powers of these pests of 
tropical waters will understand that the two unsheathed 
caravels were in no condition to hazard the voyage from 
Darien to Spain. " With one month of good weather, I 
would have completed my voyage," the Admiral distinctly 
declares. " Through the failure of my ships I did not ven- 
ture to await it [such weather] in order to recommence the 
voyage." He recalls his suggestion for building a different 
type of craft for navigation in the western seas, and thinks 
that, had there been time to do this before leaving Spain, he 
would have reached his goal. The winds and currents in 
the Indies, he points out, are such that satisfactory headway 
can only be made when the breeze is dead abaft ; " no one 



AN INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 467 

dares to sail on a bowline, because in one day they will lose 
all they have gained in seven." This is the cause, he adds, 
why vessels sometimes remain in port for six or eight months 
awaiting a fair wind, — as they were occasionally compelled 
to do even in Spain, and these were the reasons by which he 
accounted for his slow progress along the coast and for his 
retirement from it before his task was accomplished. They 
seem to us to be more rational than the assertion afterwards 
made by some of his disaffected sailors, that the cause of 
his not finding the strait was his failure to start from Jamaica 
as he originally proposed. He himself informs us that he 
did not wish his men to know their whereabouts. Porras 
adds that, to accomplish this, he took from them all their 
maps and charts. In consequence, when the two ships left 
Terra Firma and steered northwards, some of the pilots 
thought they were bound for San Domingo, others for Porto 
Rico, and others still that they were heading direct for Spain. 
As before said, the Admiral's pilots had secured some rough 
map of the discoveries of Bastidas. When, therefore, the 
Admiral first reached Porto Bello and El Retrete in Decem- 
ber, those ports were recognized as having been the westward 
limit of that explorer's expedition. The second cruise of 
the Admiral to and beyond these points, after the withdrawal 
of the Belen garrison, appears to have been due rather to a 
desire to connect his own later discoveries definitely with 
those of Bastidas than to run into a favorable wind, as is 
usually supposed. Bastidas had certainly found no strait 
between Paria and Darien ; if Columbus lapped over the 
termination of Bastidas's cruise, he would possess the cer- 
tainty that no passage existed through the Darien coast. 
This is an intelligible motive for his keeping still eastward 
after finally leaving Veragua ; while there was no ground 
then known to him for expecting a fairer wind off the Gulf 
of Darien than off the mouth of the Belen River. The 
negative result of his close scrutiny of the coast below 
Veragua had given shape to a vague idea which he had 
gathered from the natives of that region and from Don 
Bartholomew's accounts of his expeditions inland. The 
repeated references by the Indians to a province or country 



468 THE LAST VOYAGES OE THE ADMIRAL. 

lying to the westward which was washed by another sea had 
made a profound impression. Whether this were Ciguard, 
Cathay, or an unnamed land was far from clear. The occu- 
pants of the canoe at Guanaja said it was a ten days' journey 
thither; the guides who took Don Bartholomew up the 
Veragua River told him it was twenty days away. They all 
seemed to intimate that this western kingdom, where gold 
was so plentiful and the arts so far advanced, possessed its 
own coast-hne. It was not long before the Admiral had 
formulated the theory that another ocean lay behind Veragua 
and Cariay. If so, his faith in a strait was well-founded. 
But if no strait existed to the eastward of Veragua, it must 
lie further to the west or north. There was something 
else besides "visions," and puerile schemes to humbug the 
shrewdest monarch in Christendom, at work in the Admiral's 
mind while he lay on his pallet during the long weeks at 
Belen and Porto Bello. 

" It appears that these countries are situated, with relation 
to Veragua, as Tortosa is to Fuenterabia, or as Pisa is to 
Venice," was his conclusion. That is to say, that the new 
continent which he had discovered three years before at 
Paria, which Pinzon and Lepe had carried ten degrees 
below the Equator and Hojeda and Bastidas had traced 
westward to Porto Bello, was, although on a vastly greater 
scale, a huge peninsula like Spain and Portugal, or Italy; 
and that the ocean encompassing it approached so near to 
the Gulf of Mexico (as we call it) in the latitude of Veragua, 
that the latter coast was separated from that to the west 
only as the opposite cities of the Spanish and Italian penin- 
sulas are separated. A glance at any map of Europe will 
satisfy the fair-minded reader that, in spite of his imperfect 
comprehension of the Indian signs and language, Columbus 
had arrived at a very just conception of the relative positions 
of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and of the narrow neck 
into which the southern continent was contracted above the 
Gulf of Darien. Those who detect evidences of his insanity 
in the account of his dream, pass slightingly over the words 
which we have quoted and which show his quick geographical 
perceptions, although both references are contained in the 



A A- INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 469 

same report. He may have had some crude idea of a sea 
beyond Veragua, they grudghigly concede ; but it was noth- 
ing more than a speculative fancy. In this they do him a 
gratuitous wrong. Although his words, written within three 
months of leaving Belen, are sufficiently plain, he was much 
more explicit in a letter subsequently written to Peter 
]\Iartyr. That indefatigable chronicler of geographical nov- 
elties was not content with a passing reference to a problem 
of such surpassing interest as the possible existence of a 
new ocean, and obtained a detailed presentation of the 
Admiral's argument. We quote him literally, from Richard 
Eden's quaint but effective translation : — 

" Colonus the Admiral the first finder of these regions affirm- 
eth that the tops of the mountains of Veragua are more than 
fifty miles in height [ !] . He saith furthermore that in the same 
region at the roots of the mountains the way is open to the 
south sea, and compareth it, as it were, between Venice and 
Genoa. . . . He affirmeth also that this land reacheth forth 
toward the south ; and from hence it taketh the beginning of 
breadth, like as from the Alps out of the narrow thigh of Italy 
we see the large and main lands of France, Germany, and Pan- 
nonia. . . . The Admiral supposeth that on the left hand, in 
sailing toward the west, this land is joined to India beyond the 
River of Ganges ; and that on the right hand toward the north, 
it be extended to the frozen sea, beyond the Hyperboreans and 
the North Pole. So that both these seas (that is to say, the 
South Sea, which we said to be found by Vaschus,^ and our 
Ocean) should join and meet in the corners of that land ; and 
that the waters of these seas do not only \i.e., unbrokenly] 
enclose and compass the same without division as Europe is 
enclosed." . . . 

This, then, was the geographical fruit of the Admiral's 
wearisome voyage. The great continent in the South ex- 
tended west to India, but dwindled to a neck of land near 

1 This allusion to Vasco Nunez de Balboa, and his subsequent dis- 
covery of the Pacific, only emphasizes the correctness of Columbus's 
earlier inference. It is scarcely necessary to point out that Peter 
Martyr was writing several years after the death of Columbus; but it is 
equally obvious that he was transcribing from some letter of the 
Admiral which contained the views he epitomizes so clearly. 



470 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Veragua ; the northern continent of Cabot reached to the 
North Pole. Between them rolled the same ocean which 
bathed the shores of China, India, and the Spice Islands ; 
and this ocean communicated with the Atlantic, or the 
Ocean Sea, by a strait which broke somewhere through the 
mountain chain which connected the northern and the 
southern continents. This passage he had failed to find ; 
but he believed it to be there. Had he been favored with 
but a single month more of good weather, he thought, and 
had his ships been serviceable, he would have found it ! 
More "delusions," if you please ; but a singularly close ap- 
proach to a correct estimate of western geography. Near 
enough, at all events, to induce half a dozen bold spirits to 
attempt to find the "South Sea" as soon as the results of the 
Admiral's latest exploration were known. We hear much of 
his failure to discover the strait he started to find ; ^ but little 
of the ocean he so unerringly located. Could we but know 
what passed between the Admiral and his brother when the 
latter returned from his journey to the summit of the Vera- 
guan mountain pass, we might find that, years before the 
fiery Balboa, the more phlegmatic Don Bartholomew had 
heard of the blue streak in the west which heralded the 
existence of the Peaceful Sea. 

Columbus was sadly aware that Ferdinand and Isabella 
would not gauge the success of his expedition by its o-eo- 
graphical results. To them one string of Indian names was 
much like another ; if he had failed to find an entrance into 

1 In Winsor's " Narrative and Critical History of America," Vol. II. 
p. 218, is reproduced a map of Maiollo of as late a date as 1527 in which 
the "Sireito Cubitoso" (Query: Streito dtibiioso, ox Doubtful Strait?) 
is delineated as cutting across the Isthmus from ocean to ocean; and 
as late as 1532 Miinster reproduced it in his map. We have differed 
so radically from Dr. Winsor's estimate of Columbus and his work, as 
given in " Christopher Columbus, and how he received and transmitted 
the Spirit of Discovery," that we the more readily admit the obliga- 
tions which, in common with all students of our early history, we are 
under for the learned author's " Narrative and Critical History." It is 
a monument of patient and most laborious research, and, little as we 
may agree with some of its conclusions, it has spared us too many 
hours of wearisome investigation to receive aught but grateful and 
admiring acknowledgment at our feeble hands. 



AN INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 47 1 

the eastern seas, his standing with them was gone — unless 
he brought gold. We have seen that, beyond verifying the 
existence of that metal in abundance, and securing such 
quantity of it by barter as would confirm his assertions, he 
did not propose at first to tarry even where it was most plen- 
tiful. " I was not in favor of turning back," is his emphatic 
comment upon the return to Veragua suggested by his men. 
But vvhen he was forced, by the destruction of his ships, to 
give up the search for the strait, his thoughts recurred, 
naturally enough, to the compensation assured to his sov- 
ereigns in the incalculable wealth of the Veraguan coasts. 
Warned by the bitter consequences which flowed from his 
neglect in earlier years to allow for the difficulties to be sur- 
mounted before even great natural riches could be securely 
gathered into the royal coffers, he imposes upon himself a 
rigid exactness of language. " This punishment leads me 
now to say nothing but what I hear from the natives of the 
country. One thing I venture to say, because there are so 
many witnesses, and that is, that I have seen in this land of 
Veragua greater evidence of gold in the first two days 
than in Hispaniola during four years." After alluding to 
the fertility of the country, its easily defended ports, and 
the cowardly disposition of its people — as judged from the 
Spanish point of view, he says : " Your Majesties are as 
much lords over this as over Xeres or Toledo. Such of 
your ships as may go thither will go as though to their own 
home. From there they will gather gold. In other coun- 
tries, in order to have what is in them, it is needful that 
they take it by force, or they will return empty ; and while 
on land they {i.e. the Spaniards] must trust their persons to 
a savage."^ He explains that, when he found his ships 
were unseaworthy, his first idea was to settle in Veragua 
with all his force, as the most advantageous course to follow 

1 "The man was mad," is Dr. Witisor's charitable comment on this 
passage, as it is wzVtranslated in Vix. Major's " Select Letters of Colum- 
bus," published by the Hakluyt Society. Had the learned writer 
referred to the Admiral's own language, he would have seen that, so far 
from being " mad," Columbus was showing plain common sense in his 
remarks to his sovereigns. 



472 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

under the circumstances. Afterwards he decided to with- 
draw everybody. "The apprehension that no ships might 
ever touch there decided me to do this, and the reflection 
that when rehef is sent everything will be provided for." 
He would not sanction a general robbery of the Indians' 
hoards of gold, because " it did not seem well to me nor 
for your Majesties' interest that it should be taken by vio- 
lence. Good treatment will avoid discontent and an ill 
name, and will result in its all reaching the Treasury, so that 
not a grain is left." In saying this he clearly makes the dis- 
tinction, as always before, between those natives who were 
peaceable and those who were unfriendly. Don Bartholo- 
mew's raid upon the King of Veragua was a necessary war 
measure, not robbery. 

The " secret " both of the strait and of the gold coast was 
confined to himself and his brother. Pursuing a policy of 
absolute reticence as to his own ideas, and taking from his 
men such charts as they possessed or drew, the Admiral 
strove to prevent his followers from having any exact knowl- 
edge of the whereabouts of Veragua, at least until he could 
communicate with the King and Queen. In this he was 
immeasurably aided by the constant changes of direction 
forced upon him by the succession of gales encountered 
throughout the voyage. " One hundred and fifty men went 
with me," he writes, " among them many qualified to be 
pilots and notable mariners ; not one of them can give a 
reliable account of where I went or whence I came." " Let 
them say, if they know," he repeats, " where is the situa- 
tion of Veragua. I reiterate that they cannot give any 
other answer or report, except that they went to certain 
countries where there is much gold, and testify to that ; 
but they are ignorant of the road to return to it. To reach 
it, it would be necessary to discover it again, as at first." 
But in taking these elaborate precautions for concealment, 
the Admiral had no intention other than to escape a repeti- 
tion of the utterly unjust treatment to which he had been 
subjected after his former discoveries. " I cannot think of 
Hispaniola and Paria and the other countries without 
grieving," he frankly declares. " I felt that the experience 



AN INACCESSIBLE OCEAN. 473 

with them would have to be reversed for these other lands. 
.... It is not just that those who have ahvays been op- 
posed to this enterprise should enjoy its benefits, or their 
children." He did not propose, if he could prevent it, that 
Veragua should be overrun by reckless adventurers as Paria 
had been. " I hold in greater estimation this discovery and 
its mines," is his assertion, " with its port and adjacent terri- 
tory, than all else that has been done in the Indies. This is 
no child to be turned over to a step-mother." Within ten 
years his estimate of the value of Veragua was as fully justi- 
fied as was his theory of an ocean beyond it. So famous 
was it for treasure that the descendants of Columbus, when 
chosing the title under which they should be known, selected 
that of Dukes of Veragua as being the one likely to reflect 
upon them the greatest distinction. 

That he did not himself gather any more of the fruit of 
this last harsh experience than he had of those preceding it, 
troubled the Admiral less than it since has his biographers. 
" I did not come to sail this voyage to gain glory or wealth," 
he affirms, " because all expectation of that was dead 
within me. I came to serve your Majesties with honest 
purpose and hearty zeal, and I do not lie." For one, we 
believe the great sailor. His attempt had resulted other- 
wise than he had hoped ; but he loyally set himself to turn 
it to the greatest advantage possible for his royal patrons. 
His heart was in his explorations ; but his judgment led him 
to give due heed to the material benefits incidentally dis- 
covered. A remarkable, almost unique, succession of catas- 
trophes foiled his main purpose, a.nd he labored to secure a 
compensation for the Crown in the face of his personal dis- 
appointment and deep distress. 

" Let those who are used to criticise and find fault reply 
now, saying from their own safe corner. Why did you not do 
so and so out yonder? Heartily do I wish they were in 
this undertaking," is his pertinent reflection, after rehears- 
ing the story of his cruise. It is, perhaps, as applicable 
to-day as when its ink was fresh. 



XXIII. 
THE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 

DESPITE the expectations of his pilots, and the dan- 
gerous condition of his vessels, it was not the Ad- 
miral's purpose to make direct for Hispaniola on leaving 
the Gulf of Darien. The remembrance of Ovando's refusal 
to aid him the year before was too fresh to risk a repetition 
of it. His plan was rather to reach the southern coast of 
Jamaica, as near as possible to Cape Morant, whence he 
could despatch messengers by boat to the opposite cape of 
Hispaniola, and so communicate with the governor at San 
Domingo. Jamaica, having as yet no Spanish colony, was 
within his own bailiwick, although within a day's easy sail 
of the western extremity of Hispaniola. It would serve as 
a secure refuge, even in the event of a second rebuff from 
Ovando, and from it an appeal to the Crown for assistance 
could, in the last extremity, be made. The governor could 
not decline to transmit the Admiral's despatches to their 
Majesties. Another consideration which may have influ- 
enced Columbus in laying his course for Jamaica, was its 
closer proximity to the coast he was abandoning. His two 
caravels were now literally in the last stages of dissolution. 
If he could run across the intervening ocean to Jamaica, 
he might save them; but repeated experiences along the 
Hispaniolan shores had shown how likely to be renewed was 
his contest with the elements if he attempted to fetch San 
Domingo Harbor with his crazy barks. Even as it was, he 
found his calculations again frustrated by the winds and 
currents, for on the tenth day after leaving the Isthmus he 
474 



rilE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 



A7S 



sighted the two islands which are called the Caymans on 
modern maps, but which he named the Tortugas.^ Although 
within 200 miles of Jamaica he could not make it in face of 
the head winds and current, but was forced to run northward 
instead. On May the 13th he found himself once more 
among the islets and cays of the Queen's Gardens, whence 
he passed to the adjacent coast of Cuba, and came to anchor 
not far from the site of the modern city of Trinidad. To 
Columbus this was still the province of Mangi, "which 
touches that of Cathay," as he had concluded in 1494. It 
was part and parcel of eastern Asia, on the coast which, as 
he supposed, swept around to the west and south towards 
Cariay and Veragua.^ The pilots and seamen were more 
surprised than gratified to find themselves as far from 
Hispaniola as when they left the shores of Darien, and 
murmured loudly at their commander's want of seamanship 
in so far missing his supposed destination. He, however, 
keeping his own counsel, followed the shore toward the 
eastward, hoping to fetch Cape Cruz and thence run over 
to Jamaica as he had done in '94. Mindful of the perils 
he then encountered from shoals and banks, he kept well out 
to sea at the present time, and was thus exposed to the full 
fury of a gale which came up on the second day out. To 
escape this he ran back to the shelter of the islands along- 
shore, losing his sails in the manoeuvre. To add to his 
dilemma, during the night three of the four cables which 
were paid out from his own ship parted, and his consort, 
dragging her own anchors, bore down upon him in the 
darkness and crashed into his vessel with disastrous force. 
"The [remaining] anchor, by the way it stood by me, was 

^ Misled by the identity of name, Irving places these islands to the 
north-west of Hispaniola, and Dr. Winsor to the west thereof. The 
result is confusing to the student of Columbus's voyage, vi\iO reads of 
the vessels arriving only three days later on the southern shore of Cuba. 
Las Casas positively identifies the Tortugas with the Caymans, and the 
latter are due south from Cienfuegos. 

2 Irving and those who follow him make Columbus speak of this 
Mangi as part of the Isthmus of Darien. The Admiral himself dis- 
tinctly refers to it as the Mangi of his Cuban cruise, and the identifica- 
tion is supported by Diego Mendez. 



476 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

what, after Our Lord, saved me," he says. Had his last 
cable parted, both caravels must have gone on the sands. 
As it was, they held their ground until daylight, and then 
found a safer haven, where six days were passed in tinker- 
ing up the battered hulks and waiting for fair weather. 
When that came he renewed his voyage, only to be beaten 
back by another storm, and driven to seek refuge in the little 
island he had left. 

At last, after more than a week of detention, he got 
under way again, and succeeded in crossing over to Ja- 
maica, where, on the 23rd of June, he entered the harbor 
of Puerto Bueno which had been his first landfall after dis- 
covering the island nine years before. The circumstances 
of his present visit to the scenes which had then so charmed 
him formed one of those violent and dramatic contrasts with 
which the career of Columbus abounded. At that time, he 
was in the plenitude of his vice-regal power; returning from 
a cruise which was peculiarly successful from his standpoint, 
since it had established the identity of Cuba as part of Asia, 
and added lordly Jamaica to the already long list of his gifts 
to Spain. Now, he was at the very lowest ebb of his for- 
tunes; bound to his pallet by chains stronger than those of 
Bobadilla, harassed by the absorbing question of daily food, 
knowing that his leaky tubs were sailing their last knots, 
doubtful of his reception by the natives, aware of the 
mutinous spirit rising among his own men, and forced to 
contemplate the imminent possibility of disaster to his 
companions, and almost certain death to himself before 
succor could reach them or him. The last rations were 
being doled out; the ships had lost sails, anchors and rig- 
ging; they had reached a stage where "with three pumps, 
basins, and kettles, all hands together could not bail out the 
water which entered the hull, nor for this curse of the teredo 
is any other cure possible." to use the Admiral's own words. 
Hopeless as was the outlook on board the caravels, he only 
passed a single day in Puerto Bueno. The harbor was situ- 
ated in the north-west corner of Jamaica, at almost that part 
of the island most remote from Hispaniola. It was essen- 
tial to get as near the eastern end as practicable, so as to be 



THE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 477 

within the shortest possible distance of the latter coast, and 
Puerto Bueno was, moreover, uninhabited and destitute of 
supplies. For the last time the gaping hulls put to sea, 
steering eastward, close alongshore. It was soon apparent 
that they might founder at any moment, so fast were the 
leaks gaining on the crews. A few miles further on they 
came to another bay, where a native village held out the 
hope of provisions and shelter. The caravels were now so 
full of water that they could with difficulty make an entrance, 
but after much trouble they were headed in shore and run 
as far up towards the beach as their water-logged hulls would 
allow. If they were to sink, the shallow bottom was near 
enough to prevent loss of life. "Who would believe what 
I here write?" inquires the Admiral; "I declare that I 
have not told one part in a hundred in this letter." 

The first requisite was to provide subsistence for the com- 
mand. From the neighboring village only a scanty supply 
could be obtained, and the Spaniards' stay might be long. 
Diego Mendez with three comrades was sent on a foraging 
expedition through the neighborhood, provided with an 
ample store of trifles for barter, and carrying instructions to 
arrange with the chiefs of the villages visited to send regular 
supplies of cassava, maize, and other Indian foods to Santa 
Gloria, as the Admiral had named his harbor of refuge. 
Mendez journeyed on foot as far as Cape Antonio near the 
eastern end of the island, contracting as carefully as any 
modern quartermaster for immediate supplies as well as for 
future deliveries, sending back his companions one by one 
at the head of a string of native porters loaded with the 
results of his work, and arranging for the systematic contin- 
uance of the service. From the cape he returned by sea, 
bringing a flotilla of half a dozen canoes laden with the 
wholesome Indian provisions, and able to report that food 
would be plentiful in the future. He had established a 
permanent scale of prices in beads and other trinkets for 
the supplies to be received, and both natives and Spaniards 
were delighted with the outcome of his mission. The 
Admiral's critics explain this obviously intelligent and just 
measure by the fact that, having no ships to retreat to, he 



4/8 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

was afraid to treat the Indians otherwise than well. If so, 
it is the only time on record that 140 fully armed Spaniards 
were afraid of anything in the way of naked Indians when 
their own lives were at stake. 

During the absence of Mendez, Columbus had discussed 
their situation exhaustively with his principal followers. 
The unanimous opinion was that an appeal should at once 
be made to Ovando for aid, and, failing that, a messenger 
should be sent to Spain by the first fleet leaving San Domingo. 
In this the Admiral concurred, although with no great hope 
of moving the governor of Hispaniola to lend any effective 
assistance. His own idea was that his command would 
have to sustain themselves as best they might until relief 
was sent from Spain, which might not reach them for a year 
and a half, if at all. His reluctance to disobey their Majes- 
ties' orders, coupled with his doubt as to Ovando 's readiness 
to render help, led him to be skeptical as to the chance of 
anything being accomplished in San Domingo. At the 
same time he was bound to make the effort. A very prac- 
tical problem requiring solution was the means of getting 
any message or dispatch at all to Hispaniola. The shortest 
distance between the islands was from Cape Morant to Cape 
Tiburon, a clear 100 miles. His first intention was to in- 
duce some friendly natives to attempt to cross over, in one 
of their large canoes, from the eastern end of Jamaica to 
Hispaniola. Although the distance was so great, he knew 
that such journeys were not unusual among the amphibious 
islanders, to whom the swamping of a canoe was a laughing 
matter. He therefore set to work preparing letters to 
Ovando, the King and Queen, and some of his devoted 
friends in Spain, recounting the events of his voyage, and 
asking for the means of escaping from his present straits. 
Before these were completed, Diego Mendez arrived from 
his journey and volunteered to make the daring effort in 
person. The offer was as promptly accepted by the Ad- 
miral. Mendez put a false keel on his canoe, nailed a strip 
of planking along her gunwales to give her a higher free- 
board, and provided a mast and sail for use in case the wind 
should serve. The crew was to consist of six stalwart native 



THE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 479 

paddlers. Such was the activity shown in the preparations 
that in two days the little craft was ready for her perilous 
expedition. 

Several of the Admiral's letters which were entrusted to 
Mendez have come down to us. They bear the date of 
Julyyth, which must have been approximately that of the 
messenger's departure. One of them, addressed to Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella, is famous as the lettera rarissima, and 
from it we have quoted freely in preceding chapters. It 
recites the chief incidents of the voyage, his so-called 
"vision," and dwells at great length upon the vast impor- 
tance of Veragua as a source of future revenue. In urging 
this upon their Majesties, the Admiral lays stress upon the 
supreme power of gold in all mundane affairs, and the 
duty of all good Christians to amass it. In the eyes of his 
critics this stands as a frank declaration of the sordid ava- 
rice which they insist consumed him. If such were the case, 
he assuredly chose a singular season and place for making 
his avowal. But if we read his words with due relation to 
their context and his known ambitions, we find another suf- 
ficient cause for his anxiety to impress upon his sovereigns 
the sacred duty of securing the gold so bountifully offered 
to them by his discovery of Veragua. Both the King and 
Queen had declared to the Admiral, after his return from 
the finding of San Salvador, that they approved his scheme 
for the recovery of Jerusalem from the Moslem. The events 
which had since elapsed had deprived him of the great 
revenues anticipated successively from Hispaniola and 
Paria; but he was still under the vow he had reported to 
Pope Sextus in 1502. If their Majesties would but follow 
his counsel and save Veragua from the evils which had 
overtaken his earlier discoveries, ample resources were 
assured for the prosecution of his crusade, notwithstanding 
past disasters. 

" The Genoese, Venetians, and every other people which pos- 
sesses pearls, precious stones, or other commodities of value," 
argues the Admiral, "carry them to the ends of the Earth in 
order to barter them and exchange them for gold. Gold is 
supremely excellent ; out of gold is wealth constituted, and 



48o THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

whoever possesses it can by its means do whatever he wishes in 
tlie world. It even suffices to bring souls into Paradise. The 
lords of those territories in the country of Veragua, so I am 
told, bury the gold they own in their graves when they die. 
Solomon brought from a single voyage 666 hundredweight of 
gold, besides what the merchants and sailors had, and besides 
what was paid in Arabia. From this gold he made 200 spears 
and 300 shields, and he made the panels which were above 
them of gold adorned with precious stones, and made many 
other things of gold, such as large vases richly set with pre- 
cious stones. Josephus writes this in his ' Antiquities.' In the 
Paralipomenon and in the Book of Kings it is also recounted. 
Josephus thinks that this gold was obtained in the Aurea. If 
this were true, I maintain that those mines of the Aurea are 
one with and correspond to those of Veragua ; which, as I have 
above said, extend twenty days' travel toward the west and are at 
an equal distance from the Pole and the Equator. Solomon 
bought all that gold, silver, and gems, but there you may send 
and gather it if you so choose. David in his will left to Solomon 
3000 hundredweight of gold from the Indies, to aid in building 
the Temple, and according to Josephus it came from these same 
countries. Jerusalem and Mt. Zion are to be restored by the 
hand of Christians : who they are to be God, by the mouth of 
his prophet, in the 14th Psalm declares. The Abbot Joaquim 
said that this work was to issue from Spain. St. Jerome dis- 
closed to the Holy Woman the way thither. Years ago the 
Emperor of Cathay sent for wise men to teach him the faith of 
Christ. Who is it that shall offer himself for this enterprise? 
If Our Lord conducts me to Spain, I bind myself to take such an 
one to him, together with the word of God, in safety." 

We may smile at the geographical speculations of the 
writer, and shrug our shoulders at his crusading schemes, 
but we cannot deny the earnestness of his convictions. 
There is not a single word in his argument which denotes 
a selfish purpose. The next sentence would do honor to 
any hero of African or Arctic exploration : — 

" These people who have come with me have passed through 
incredible perils and labors. I entreat your Majesties, because 
they are poor, that you cause them to be paid at once and give 
some reward to each one according to his rank ; for in my belief 
they bear the best news which has ever entered Spain." 



THE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 48 1 

His own avaricious and grasping nature is shown in the 
demands made for himself : — 

" If it pleases your Majesties to graciously send me the assist- 
ance of a ship which exceeds 64 tons burthen, with 200 hun- 
dredweight of biscuit and some other provisions, it will be 
sufficient to carry me and these people to Spain from Hispaniola." 

Even in his dire extremity he remembers his master's 
orders about touching at San Domingo, and repeats his 
intention to respect them : — 

"I have already said that there are not 28 leagues distance 
between Jamaica and Hispaniola. Not if the ships were in con- 
dition to make the voyage would I go there. I have already said 
that I was ordered, in the name of your Majesties, not to land 
there. Whether this action has done any good, God only knows." 

It is only at the end of his letter — which, not unnaturally, 
is far from being a model of methodical composition — that 
he makes a personal plea. Touching upon his long and 
laborious services, his cruel degradation and spoliation, 
and the lying accusations brought against him by jealous 
enemies, he pleads for the restoration of his honors, so 
often and solemnly promised, and for righteous punish- 
ment upon those who have wronged and robbed him. 

" The honest purpose I have ever cherished in serving your 
Majesties and the unparalleled wrongs done me do not permit 
my spirit to be silent, much as I desire it : I beg that your 
Majesties will pardon me. For myself, I am lost, as I have 
said. Heretofore I have grieved for others ; may Heaven now 
have pity upon me and the Earth weep for me. In worldly 
matters I have not now a single maravedi for an alms ; in spirit- 
ual, I am imprisoned here in the Indies in the situation described, 
— exiled upon this rock, broken in health, looking daily for 
death, surrounded by innumerable, cruel, and hostile savages, 
and so cut off from the holy sacraments of our holy Church that 
this soul will be forgotten if it takes leave of the body here. 
Whoever possesses charity, truth, and justice, weep for me ! I 
did not come on this voyage to navigate in order to win honor 
and riches ; that is certain, for the hope of all that was already 
dead within me. I came to serve your Majesties with honest 
purpose and hearty zeal, and I do not lie. I humbly request 
your Majesties that, if it should please God to rescue me from 

31 



482 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

here, you may permit me to go to Rome and other pilgrimages ; 
— Whose Hfe and eminent estate may the Holy Trinity protect 
and increase. Dated in the Indies, on the Island of Jamaica, 
the 7th of July, 1503." 

Such was the ending of the last letter which the Admiral 
wrote to his sovereigns from the New World. He thought 
it likely that it would be the last time he should address 
them in life. The chances of his surviving until some 
relief arrived were of the remotest, even should Mendez 
succeed in reaching Ovando; in the event of his failure, the 
Admiral and many a man among his following were likely 
to find their resting place beneath the dark shades of the 
jungle fringing Santa Gloria Bay. 

Mendez, with a single comrade and their oarsmen, 
pluckily set out in his frail craft along the coast. On the 
way he was attacked by a party of Indian sea-rovers, but 
escaped capture and reached the eastern end of the island 
in safety. There, the wind being for the moment unfav- 
orable, he left the canoe and went on foot some distance 
away to reconnoitre. Falling in with a party of natives, 
they took him prisoner and forthwith proceeded to play 
some game, with him as its prize. While they were thus 
engaged he slipped away, regained his canoe, and started 
back to Santa Gloria. It was clear that he must have pro- 
tection in getting away from Jamaica. He reached the 
caravels about a fortnight after leaving them and reported 
his adventures. At the same time he announced his entire 
readiness to repeat the effort. The Admiral thereupon 
selected Bartolom^ de Fiesco, a Genoese of rank and his 
own kinsman, who had commanded the abandoned "Viz- 
caina," to join Mendez in a second attempt. Each of the 
messengers was to have a canoe manned by ten Indian pad- 
dlers. In the event of their attaining Hispaniola, Fiesco was 
to return to the Admiral with Ovando's reply, and Mendez 
was to sail to Spain by the first conveyance with the letters and 
despatches. Don Bartholomew was asked to march along 
the coast with sixty men as an escort for the canoes, and to 
remain at the end of the island until they were well on their 
way towards Hispaniola. Both parties reached the eastern 



THE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 483 

extremity of Jamaica without molestation, and, after wait- 
ing three or four days for a smooth sea, the canoes put out 
on their hazardous transit. The land force waited for three 
days to receive them if any disaster drove them back, and 
then retraced their way to the ships and reported the ap- 
parently successful issue of the undertaking. Mendez and 
Fiesco did, in fact, succeed in making the passage and land- 
ing somewhere in the long and narrow promontory which 
juts out from the southwestern shores of Hayti, but they 
narrowly missed destruction. The sea had been calm, in- 
deed, during their voyage; but five days had been required 
to make it instead of one-half that time as they had ex- 
pected. Their water and provisions had given out on the 
third day, and the native paddlers, exhausted with such 
prolonged exertion, had quickly succumbed to thirst and 
hunger. Only the accidental sighting of the lonely rocks 
of Navassa,^ outlined against the rising moon on the fourth 
night of their passage, saved the lives of all. Had they 
been in any other position at the moment, they must have 
passed by the islet in the darkness; as it was, they found 
enough rain-water in the hollows of its rocky surface, and 
shell-fish on its shore, to allay their sufferings, and provide 
them for the remainder of their journey. From Cape Tibu- 
ron the messengers started alongshore for San Domingo, but 
learning on the way that Ovando was in Xaragua, near their 
first landing, Mendez started over land to join him, while 
Fiesco continued on the seat of government. So far as 
their loyal endeavor could, the relief of their commander 
and comrades at Santa Gloria was now assured. 

Meantime the forlorn settlement at Santa Gloria Bay had 
assumed an air of semi-permanence, as if in grim determina- 
tion to await the worst with resolution. The "Santiago" 
had, as early as the 23rd of July, been run up on the beach, 
and allowed to settle into her final berth in the sands. On 

1 This little island, now somewhat noted for its guano deposit, lies 
about forty miles west of Hayti, and was declared by proclamation of the 
President to be United States territory in 1891. It is, therefore, the 
only portion of our national domain which is directly connected with 
the voyages and discoveries of Columbus. 



484 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the 12th of August the flagship was warped alongside her, 
beams laid across both decks, and cabins after the native 
fashion built on the platform thus provided. By this means 
the Admiral secured sufficient accommodation for his men 
without risking the complications sure to result from their 
residence among the natives on shore, while obtaining a 
slight advantage of position in the event of any hostile 
demonstration by the Indians. One danger was ever present 
to his mind — the ease with which his palm-thatched and 
reed-walled cabins might be iired, and with them so much 
of his wretched hulks as were above water — but this would 
have been an equal menace had he built cabins on shore. 
In these narrow quarters, with the floods of heaven pouring 
from above and the waters of the bay washing about the 
wooden caverns beneath their feet, the Spaniards passed the 
dreary months of the rainy season. The Admiral's illness 
kept him a constant prisoner on his pallet; for months he 
was unable to walk across his own cabin. The men, left to 
their own devices, spent their time when on board in growl- 
ing at the leaders who had brought them to such a pass, and 
when on shore in amusing themselves at the expense of the 
long-suffering and overawed natives. Under the insidious 
provocation of the Porras brothers, — Francisco, the captain 
of the "Santiago," and Diego, the royal comptroller, — 
ably seconded by Master Bernal, the fleet apothecary, their 
grumbling gradually took the shape of a definitely planned 
mutiny. All the old stories of the Admiral's disfavor at 
Court were revived, and augmented by hints that Mendez 
and Fiesco had, in reality, merely gone to attend to his 
private interests, without a thought of securing aid for their 
shipwrecked comrades. This leaven worked as it was in- 
tended, until, on the day after New Year's, 1504, Fran- 
cisco Porras gathered together forty-eight discontents, and 
boldly entered the Admiral's cabin. 

"It appears to us, Seiior," he announced, "that you have 
no desire to take us to Spain, but intend to keep us here in 
abandonment." 

Taken by surprise by such an outbreak, the Admiral's 
first impulse was to conciliate as far as possible the malcon- 



THE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 485 

tents. Dwelling on the obvious impossibility of doing 
anything until relief should arrive in response to the appeals 
sent by Mendez and Fiesco, he pointed out that his own 
desire to escape must necessarily be greater than that of 
any one else, both from motives of interest and because of 
his immense responsibility for those with him. He reminded 
them that he had discussed all possible remedies with them- 
selves, and followed the course which seemed to all the best, 
and added that if they had anything else to propose he would 
gladly hear them now. To this Porras defiantly answered 
that there had been too much talking already; either the 
Admiral would set out at once with them for Spain, or he 
would stay where he was. Turning his back upon his bed- 
ridden commander he shouted to his associates : " For my 
part, I am bound for Castile with all who want to go with 
me ! " In a moment the ships rang with cries of " I am 
with you," "and I," "and I," while the mutineers, arms in 
hand, quickly took positions commanding the decks and 
their houses. Some of the more reckless were for ending 
the careers of the Admiral and Don Bartholomew then and 
there, but beyond such menacing shouts no personal affront 
was offered. Hearing the uproar, the Admiral rose from 
bed and staggered towards the door leading out on deck. 
If some of his attendants had not caught him and led him 
back to his couch he would have fallen, so weak he was. At 
the same moment Don Bartholomew had grasped a lance, 
and started to settle the account single-handed with the 
mutineers; but he, too, was restrained by the loyal by- 
standers, and forced into his brother's cabin. This done, 
some of the Admiral's adherents entered into a parley with 
Porras. Nothing would be gained by murder, they argued; 
the death of a man of the Admiral's rank would inevitably 
be visited on the conspirators, be they where they might. 
If they wanted to make the effort to reach Hispaniola them- 
selves, let them go their ways, and the Admiral and his 
followers would remain where they were. After much talk 
backwards and forwards, Porras agreed to this. That same 
day, taking ten canoes, he started off eastward with his 
companions. It is not without a certain feeling of regret 



486 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

that one sees the name of Pedro de Ledesma among the 
deserters; but in this case neither his courage nor his skill 
as navigator availed them. They reached the end of the 
island and put off for Hispaniola, having impressed the 
needful number of Indians to paddle them across. A light 
gale which sprang up threatened to swamp their cranky 
crafts soon after leaving shore. To ease them, the Spaniards 
pitched overboard all the native paddlers, and hacked off 
their hands when the poor wretches strove to get breath by 
holding on to the gunwales. Not daring to make the long 
traverse alone, they put back to the Jamaican coast. Here 
a month was passed in fruitless debate. Some wanted to 
make the effort to reach Cuba; others, to make another 
attempt for Hispaniola; others, to go back and make peace 
with the Admiral; and others still, to attack him on the car- 
avels and possess themselves of the arms and merchandise. 
Finally, in the absence of any definite plan, they began to 
raid at their leisure among the native villages. It was pre- 
ferable to being cooped up on the stranded caravels under 
the orders of the Admiral, at all events. 

With the little colony at Santa Gloria the monotonous 
months dragged wearily along. There had been little expec- 
tation of hearing anything from Hispaniola before the close 
of the year, 1503; but with the new year the Admiral and 
those who remained with him looked daily for the sails of 
the relieving caravel. As the. rains grew less violent and 
frequent, and the bright weather marked the change of 
season, the exiled explorers began to lose heart. Their 
long confinement under such depressing influences told upon 
their health, the Indians began to be indifferent in supply- 
ing provisions, and the feeblest among the Spaniards suc- 
cumbed. By March there were half a dozen graves to bear 
witness to the ravages of fever and privation, and each month 
now was adding to the number. The Admiral obtained a 
renewal of activity in the commissariat, by calling the 
Indian caciques together, in advance of a lunar eclipse, 
and warning them that the Almighty would darken the face 
of the moon if they failed to help the Christians. The 
occurrence of the predicted miracle at the time specified, 



THE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 487 

February the 1 7th, easily convinced the superstitious natives 
that the white leader was a great medicine man, and per- 
ceptibly increased their activity in furnishing his people 
with food. But the absorbing question with the Spaniards 
was not so much the supplying of their needs in their 
present quarters as some indication of their being able to 
abandon them altogether. A rumor which was passed by 
the Indians across the island from its southern coast, to the 
effect that a vessel like those of the Spaniards had been seen 
drifting, helpless and abandoned, among the strong currents 
which swept those lower shores, excited much gloomy dis- 
cussion on the land-bound caravels. A few claimed that 
the report had been originated by Porras in order to detach 
more of the Admiral's following by destroying their last 
hopes of relief; but most of the Spaniards were disposed to 
accept it as furnishing a solution, however unwelcome, of 
the long absence of news from Diego Mendez. By June 
this belief had gained such ground that Bernal, the apothe- 
cary, and a couple of kindred spirits, had succeeded in 
inducing quite a number of the Admiral's men to agree to 
desert him and join Porras. His health, they argued, was 
such as to prohibit him from being moved, and it was pre- 
posterous to expect them all to stay in that unknown corner 
until they were carried off by the fevers, merely because 
their commander was a doomed man. Let those who still 
held to the dream of help arriving from Hispaniola stay 
where they were; the men of spirit would join Porras and 
his merry men in their roving life among the forests and 
mountains of the interior. 

Had they but known it, their former comrade had labored 
unceasingly during seven long months to move Ovando to 
despatch assistance to them and their leader. As soon as 
he reached Xaragua, after leaving Fiesco, Mendez had laid 
the Admiral's situation before the governor, and implored 
him to send the needed aid to his colleague and fellow 
countrymen. For just so long did Ovando postpone lifting 
a finger to help the Admiral. The brief report made by 
Mendez of this prolonged inaction is too naive to be omitted, 
especially as it affords an opportunity of comparing the new 



488 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

governor's reputedly gentle methods of administration with 
the much-criticised harshness of the first Viceroy. 

" He kept me there seven months/' wrote Mendez, wholly 
innocent of any irony, '' until he had finished hanging and 
burning 88 caciques, all of them lords over vassals ; and among 
them Anacaona, the greatest chieftainess of the island, whom 
all the others obeyed and served. When this was ended I came 
on foot to San Domingo, which was 70 leagues distant, and 
waited there, expecting vessels to arrive from Spain, for none 
had come thence in more than a year. While this comedy was 
performing, it pleased God that three ships arrived, of which I 
bought one and loaded her with supplies of bread, wine, meat, 
swine, sheep, and dried fruits and sent her to where the Admiral 
was with his people." 

But before Mendez was able to secure this vessel, Ovando 
himself acted. One afternoon in March, — just before 
Bernal and his fresh batch of deserters were ready to aban- 
don their companions, — a large caravel appeared off the 
entrance of Santa Gloria Bay. To the Admiral and his 
distressed associates she was, of course, the long-expected 
succor sent by Diego Mendez. Even when she came to, at 
some distance from their stranded hulks, and put off a boat, 
they suffered no diminution of their joy, for this was doubt- 
less due to ignorance of the soundings. But when this boat 
drew near enough for her occupants to be distinguished, 
and the Admiral saw in her stern-sheets the figure of Diego 
de Escobar, whom he had condemned to death at the time 
of Roldan's rebellion, he began to fear some new complica- 
tion. Nor was he mistaken. Escobar came near enough to 
the Admiral's queer craft to throw a letter on her deck, and 
then rowed off some distance and lay on his oars. From 
there he shouted a message from his master to the Admiral : 
The governor greatly sympathized with him in his trials, and 
sent him a barrel of wine and a side of bacon with his kind 
regards; just at the moment he could do no more, and he 
begged the Admiral to excuse his apparent neglect until he 
was able to send a vessel to bring the whole party to San 
Domingo ! At this distance a conversation followed be- 
tween Escobar and the Admiral in which the former re- 



THE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 489 

counted the latest news from Hispaniola, and assured his 
hearer that Ovando was paying especial heed to the Ad- 
miral's interests and had accumulated a large fund as his 
share of the island's revenue. What the real motive of 
Ovando was in this extraordinary performance has never 
been satisfactorily explained. The Admiral's friends ac- 
cuse the governor of wishing merely to ascertain his real 
condition, and then abandon him to the death which was 
sure to come before long, and consider that Escobar was only 
carrying out a pre-arranged farce to quiet his victim's appre- 
hensions. The more commonly received opinion is that 
Ovando feared to take the Admiral to San Domingo lest 
he should stir up dissension, and hand over the control of 
the Indies to Genoa or some other power. The persistence 
with which this last fable obtained in Court circles during 
the Admiral's lifetime, doubtless had its origin in his natural 
intimacy with the Genoese resident in Spain, and his known 
correspondence with the Seignory of that commonwealth; 
but his repeated and logical denials leave no possible doubt 
as to its utter falsity. This seems, however, to have been 
his own interpretation of Ovando 's unchivalric conduct, for 
in the reply he sent to the governor's message he wrote : — 

" I beg you once more as a favor, Senor, that you may be 
satisfied regarding me and may rest assured that I am loyal. I 
ask you also, in your kindness, to receive becomingly Diego 
Mendez my messenger, and Fiesco, — who, as you know, is a 
man of high rank in his own country and who is so closely con- 
nected with myself, — and believe that they did not go to His- 
paniola with ulterior aims, but only to inform you, Seilor, of the 
imminent peril in which I then was and in which I continue at 
the present day. I am still lodged on the vessels which are 
stranded here, awaiting the assistance of God and yourself, for 
which my remote descendants will always bear a grateful remem- 
brance." 

Unless we are prepared to believe that Ovando was a 
deliberate monster, we must suppose that he was genuinely 
afraid of the results of the Admiral's presence at San Do- 
mingo, and hence referred the whole matter to Spain for 
solution. Only thus can we account for the excessive dila- 



490 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

toriness with which he acted. Some definite promise was 
indeed contained in the letter he sent to Columbus, for the 
latter in his reply thanks the governor with evident sincerity. 
" I have this moment received your letter, all of which I have 
read with great joy. Paper and pens would not suffice to 
write the comfort and courage which I and all these people 
with me have derived from it." At the same time the tone 
of the reply taken in its entirety is that of a man who is 
doubtful of its effect. "I am not smooth of speech," the 
Admiral writes, "rather am I considered abrupt; but the 
event, if it should occur, will show for itself." He recounts 
at length the chief incidents of his voyage, his existing 
straits, and renews his thanks for the hope of future aid 
held out by Ovando, and for the gratifying intelligence con- 
cerning his personal estate brought by Escobar. " I con- 
clude by repeating that my faith has always been and is, 
Seilor, that for my rescue you would venture even your own 
safety. I am so sure of this that all my senses concur in 
the belief." That Columbus had any such faith in the 
governor of Hispaniola would be incredible, were it not 
that a childish and irrational confidence in the sincerity of 
princes and cavaliers was the weakest point in his nature. 
His subsequent conduct indicates that he really did believe 
in the integrity of Ovando's intentions, and in the letter 
here quoted he sends an extract from their Majesties' 
instructions for this voyage, wherein they reiterate their 
purpose to respect all his rights and chartered dignities. 
"With or without this," he wrote, "ever since I began to 
serve them, I never harbored the thought of anything else." 
In his own transparent loyalty he supposed that Ovando and 
every one else must necessarily be guided by equally single 
motives. What object could any one have in being disloyal 
to princes who so generously and solemnly guaranteed his 
rights? The argument, he fancied, would be conclusive to 
Ovando. 

Escobar waited only long enough to receive the Admiral's 
letter and then returned to his caravel and hoisted sail. 
Before darkness fell he had passed out of sight. His short 
stay and singular deportment naturally caused a profound 



THE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 491 

reaction among the little community on the twin hulks. 
Where all had been feverish joy in the afternoon, all was 
black despair at night. To them the departure of Escobar 
meant nothing less than the formal and official abandon- 
ment of them by Ovando. It was not without difficulty that 
they were persuaded to agree that the certainty of Mendez's 
arrival in Hispaniola and the assurances of the governor's 
ultimate assistance were causes for congratulation and con- 
fidence, but this hopeful view finally prevailed and all set- 
tled down to wait patiently for the now assured relief. The 
Admiral even thought the occasion was opportune for win- 
ning back the Porras faction, and sent messengers to inform 
them of the word brought by the caravel, and to offer them 
free pardon if they would return to their allegiance. His 
overtures were received as a confession of weakness and 
answered with a list of counter-propositions. It was the 
dreary comedy of Roldan reenacted among the forests of 
Jamaica, and most of the deserters' confidence was based 
upon the success which had attended Roldan' s tactics. 
They overlooked the fact that the Admiral's hands were not 
tied on a savage island by the complications which fettered 
the Viceroy in an established colony of the Crown. Rely- 
ing on their own strength, the feebleness of the Admiral's 
followers, — most of whom were known to be reduced by 
their long confinement, — and the existence of sympathizers 
on the ships, the mutineers discussed the advisability of 
seizing the Admiral, his son, and Don Bartholomew, and 
then treating with Ovando on their own terms. They seem 
to have imagined that their action might be even deemed 
meritorious in certain influential quarters. 

On learning their plans the Admiral sent Don Bartholo- 
mew with fifty of his most trusted adherents to meet them. 
To renewed offers of pardon Porras replied with contemptu- 
ous rejection, and almost immediately attacked the Adelan- 
tado's company with a furious onslaught. But the fevers 
of Santa Gloria had not affected the courage of the Admiral's 
men, and their resistance was as obstinate as the attack. As 
pretty a fight ensued as the New World ever saw, common 
as such desperate affrays became in later years. Porras and 



492 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

five of his comrades beset Don Bartholomew together and 
he at once became the centre of the battle. With a terrific 
blow the rebel leader cut through the Adelantado's shield 
to the handpiece underneath ; but there his sword stuck, and, 
before it could be released, he was overpowered and captured. 
Pedro de Ledesma fell, only after receiving eight ghastly 
wounds which cut off his fingers, dislocated his sword arm, 
laid open his skull, severed the muscles of one leg, and 
divided one foot from heel to toes. Juan Sanchez, the 
luckless guardian of the Veraguan Quebi, and Juan Barba, 
who was the first to draw his sword against the bedridden 
Admiral on the 2nd of January, were more easily killed. 
Two or three more of the deserters came to a like end,^ 
while many of them were wounded. Of Don Bartholomew's 
party only one, Pedro de Terreros, the loyal captain of the 
"Gallego," lost his life, and the Adelantado alone was 
wounded. Violent as the fighting was it was soon over, 
and the victors returned to the ships with Porras and other 
prisoners, while the vanquished fled to the woods with their 
wounded. In a couple of days they sent a messenger to 
announce their desire to surrender unconditionally. The 
Admiral at once accepted their proposal, and the survivors 
soon reached the ships. Their only punishment was an 
oath on crucifix and mass-book exacted from them, wherein 
they condemned themselves to merited death in this world 
and eternal damnation in the next, if they again violated 
their allegiance. It is a significant commentary upon the 
Admiral's reputed cruelty that when he learned from the 
Indians that Pedro de Ledesma, who had been left for dead 
by friend and enemy, was still alive on the battle field, he 
sent his surgeon with a party to bring him to the ships for 
treatment. And it is no less illustrative of the surgical art 
of those days that, for want of other means of cautery, the 
worthy physician poured oil on the valiant pilot's horrid 
wounds and then set it on fire ! Notwithstanding which 

^ It is amusing to see the ingenuity with which Diego Porras, whose 
duty it was as comptroller to make a return of the crews upon reaching 
Spain, distributes these deaths over a number of days, as though due 
to climatic or other natural causes. 



THE GREATEST PERIL OE ALL. 493 

heroic measures Ledesma lived to bear false witness against 
his dead commander nine years later. 

This battle — called of Mayma, from the Indian name of 
the place where it occurred — was fought on the 19th of 
May. Towards the end of June all discontent and doubts 
were set at rest by the appearance in the ofhng of two car- 
avels. They proved to be the vessel bought and fitted out 
by Mendez, which was under the command of Diego de 
Salcedo, the Admiral's agent at San Domingo, and a smaller 
craft sent by Ovando for form's sake. Las Casas, who had 
personal knowledge of the facts, says that the governor was 
compelled by the public outcry which followed Escobar's 
return without the Admiral, to at least feign a disposition 
to help his shipwrecked colleague. For the moment, the 
latter cared little as to this; it was enough that he and his 
men were at last freed from their long exile. The prepara- 
tions for departure were soon made, and on the 28th of 
June the two relief ships stood out of Santa Gloria Bay 
bound for San Domingo, and the only vestiges of the 
Spaniards' occupation of Jamaica were the double-hulled 
ark near the beach and the graves in the neighboring 
forest, 

Salcedo had much to tell the Admiral, and did not lack 
for leisure in which to inform him thoroughly of all that 
had passed since he touched at Hispaniola two years before. 
The easterly winds and currents contested, as usual, the 
eastward course of the ships, and it was not until the 3rd of 
August that they reached the island of Beata, on the south- 
ern coast of Hispaniola. From here the Admiral sent a 
letter to Ovando, announcing his arrival and thanking him 
for his assistance. In it he recurs to the suspicions which, 
his agent told him, were still rife in the governor's circle. 

" Every effort has been made," he repeats, " to kill once and 
for all the suspicion with which I am regarded, but Diego de 
Salcedo is still disturbed on this account. Occasion for this fear 
I know could neither have been seen nor heard, for my purpose 
is absolutely honest, and therefore I am surprised. I was as 
much gratified to see the signature of your last letter as though 
it were that of Don Diego or Don Fernando, my sons/' 



494 ^^^^ LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

Notwithstanding this emphatic denial, the governor 
maintained his attitude of mental quarantine towards the 
Admiral. The latter reached San Domingo on the 13th of 
August, and was received with ceremonious distinction by 
Ovando, and with apparently more genuine rejoicings by 
the population at large, who treated the occasion as one of 
general festivity. He was lodged in the governor's man- 
sion, and shown every outward mark of consideration, but 
underneath all ran a current of stubborn obstruction of all 
of his wishes by Ovando. The Admiral had brought Porras 
with him as a prisoner, to be tried in Spain for treasonous 
rebellion, under an indictment which had been prepared 
and witnessed in due legal form. Ovando released him at 
once, claiming that the Admiral's jurisdiction did not 
extend to Hispaniola. The Admiral sought a liquidation 
of his accounts, in accordance with Escobar's declarations 
and the assertions of his own recognized agent concerning 
the large balances to his credit. Ovando paid him a few 
thousand ducats, and alleged some trifling pretext for not 
making settlement in full. The Admiral looked for hearty 
cooperation in arranging for his return to Spain. Ovando 
did not lift his hand, but left his visitor to provide for the 
voyage out of his scanty resources. Various explanations 
have been advanced to whitewash Ovando's attitude and 
motives, and they are all needed. No quality was more 
common in those days among men of the standing of the 
Admiral and the governor than magnanimous courtesy. 
That and courage were the peculiar attributes of their caste. 
Ovando probably possessed the latter ; but of the former he 
had not the faintest scintilla. Many a one among the 
savage caciques whom he had hung and burned could have 
shamed him in this respect. 

Left to his own resources, the Admiral refitted the vessel 
bought by Mendez and chartered a second one. Many of 
his followers elected to remain in Hispaniola, and these he 
paid off. When, on the 12th of September, he stood out 
of San Domingo harbor,^ he was well-nigh as penniless, so 

1 The fact that young Cortez was a resident of San Domingo or its 
vicinity at the time of the Admiral's last stay in that city has suggested 



THE GREATEST PERIL OF ALL. 495 

far as ready money went, as when he knocked at the portal 
of La Rabida thirteen years before. 

The extraordinary ill-fortune which pursued Columbus at 
sea made no exception for this voyage. Soon after leaving 
port the Mendez caravel lost her mainmast and had to put 
back. Rather than delay his return to Spain, the Admiral 
continued his voyage with the remaining vessel. A succes- 
sion of furious storms was encountered which nearly relieved 
both the King and Ovando of their troublesome claimant. 
The ship was so strained that her mainmast also went by 
the board, — fortunately after the worst of the gale was past. 
A jury-mast was rigged up under the Admiral's own direc- 
tions, his sailor instincts proving stronger than the disease 
which kept him prisoner in bed. In a later storm the 
mizzenmast also was lost, and a rude substitute had to be 
found for that as well. At last, after nearly two months of 
struggle, the familiar coasts of Andalusia were sighted, and, 
on the 7th of November, the ship anchored in the harbor 
of San Lucar. In his impatience to reach Spain, and his 
perfect faith in the welcome which his sovereigns would 
extend to him and the tidings he brought of uncountable 
wealth, the Admiral thought little of the unkindness of the 
Ocean Sea. Had he realized that he had crossed it for the 
last time, he might have been impressed with the parallel 
between its treatment of him and that of those in whose 
service he had robbed it of all mystery. 

the interesting possibility that the two great natures — so different and 
yet so like — may have met at this time. As the Admiral's malady 
was unabated, and he was confined to his bed most of the time, this 
seems hardly probable, unless the younger man sought the senior as a 
duty of courtesy; and this seems scarcely likely when we recall Cortez's 
disposition and tastes in those days. 




XXIV. 



"I HAVE DONE ALL I COULD." 



WHETHER Columbus would have been otherwise 
received had he escaped the long detention in 
Jamaica, and arrived home a year earlier, is an open ques- 
tion. That neither he nor any other discoverer, however vast 
or productive the distant regions they might have added to 
the Spanish dominions, could hope for more than a per- 
functory hearing in the closing months of 1504 was simply 
a matter of course. Ferdinand himself was ill, was pro- 
foundly immersed in the crisis of his complex French and 
Italian schemes, and was harassed by the approaching 
entanglements attendant upon the succession to the Castil- 
ian throne of his demented daughter and her dearly hated 
husband Philip. Isabella was desperately and irretrievably 
sick, and the thoughts and schemes of the whole official 
body were centred upon her approaching end. The 
whole guidance of Indian affairs was necessarily left in the 
hands of the officers charged with their administration, and 
it was a mischance of old standing that Fonseca, Bribiesca, 
and other avowed ill-wishers of Columbus were those officers. 
Since his restoration to the full enjoyment of his rights, 
which had followed his return in 1496 and the collapse of 
the Boil-Margarite-Aguado cabal, the guarantees originally 
given him and then confirmed had been so completely 
ignored that nothing but a vigorous and inflexible exercise 
of the royal authority could restore them. Whoever would, 
could and did fit out expeditions to the Indies. A regular 
form of license and contract existed, by signing which any 
496 



«/ HAVE DONE ALL I COULD." ^c^y 

one possessed of the means was entitled to go whither he 
wished, subject only to the avaricious scrutiny of his 
accounts and reports by the Indian Board when he re- 
turned to Spain. As for any participation by Columbus in 
the outcome of such expeditions, no one so much as gave 
it a thought. Some hazy claim was known to exist, but it 
was a matter of parchments ; and he was an indifferent ser- 
vant of the Crown who could not make an unwelcome con- 
tract read two ways. With regard to Hispaniola and its 
revenues, there was, indeed, less margin for dispute ; but 
even here good ground could be found for endless disputa- 
tion, and while it lasted all the proceeds passed into the 
royal coffers. None so well as Fonseca knew that the old 
Admiral's mainstay in past years had been the favor of the 
Queen, and that was as good as ended. The King might 
safely be trusted to restrain any spasm of unwise generosity 
should any such, by some miracle, find its way into his pre- 
occupied mind. Those who in past years had found it 
difficult to checkmate the Admiral's energetic and well- 
supported protests need not trouble themselves now at their 
renewal. Circumstances had changed at home as well as in 
the Indies. 

It is not to be inferred that Columbus was without friends. 
He had many who were both influential and earnest in their 
desire to serve. But, in a personal government, a political 
situation such as then obtained in Spain paralyzed all the 
usual methods of securing executive interference. The 
ordinary channels of access to the throne were choked. 
Where the individual interests of the King were so deeply 
involved, the interests of any subject — or of all, for that 
matter — must bide his convenience. With the Queen 
dying, and her consort torturing his acute faculties to map 
out a safe course through the tangled web of European 
politics, the claims and quarrels of any individual in his 
kingdom would fall on deaf ears. By and by he would 
attend to them ; whether in the way the claimant desired, 
or otherwise, remained to be seen. 

Columbus failed to completely realize this, despite his long 
association with the Court. The justice of his pretensions, 

32 



498 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

the value of his past services, the certainty of his abihty to 
perform others yet greater, and the vast importance of a 
wise administration of the empire over sea were all matters 
of imminent moment to his mind. The news of the Queen's 
desperate state was a cruel blow ; but it is doing him no more 
than justice to say that he grieved rather from his loyal devo- 
tion to her than from any motive of self-interest. Even in 
the event of her death his guarantees remained intact, and he 
persistently based his confidence in their final recognition 
upon the unanswerable strength of his contracts with the 
Crown. He saw that his immediate prospects of success were 
diminished by the existing condition of affairs at the Court ; 
but he feared that if he remained silent he would be utterly 
neglected in the clash of interests. It was impossible for 
him to wait personally upon Ferdinand, for the winter had 
set in with unusual severity, and his now unremitting malady 
kept him bedridden in Seville. In this emergency he 
decided to present his case through his son Diego, who, 
by reason of his attendance upon their Majesties, would be 
able to approach the King with greater freedom than any 
one not attached to his suite. To aid Diego he also arranged 
for his younger son, Fernando, and Don Bartholomew to set 
out some time in December for the Court, there to give an 
account of the voyage just ended, and lend such additional 
help as they could to the Admiral's cause. He counted 
much upon the unfaiUng friendship of Fray Diego de Deza, 
just elevated from the bishopric of Palencia to be archbishop 
of Seville and high in the royal confidence, and upon other 
of his sympathizers in the royal household. The better to 
submit prompt evidence of all that he might urge concern- 
ing his experiences, both recent and former, in Hispaniola, 
he had Diego Mendez, Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, and 
some other of his personal followers, take up their residence 
at Court. 

In making his appeal to Ferdinand, Columbus was acting 
upon positive assurances given by the King to Diego ; that 
his father's wrongs should be promptly righted, and the 
fullest justice done to his merits. As soon as he heard of 
the Admiral's arrival, Diego had so written to him, and it 



"/ HAVE DONE ALL I COULD." 



499 



was in reliance upon this latest evidence of the King's inten- 
tions that Columbus was acting. His object in gathering 
around his son a number of loyal partisans was to have an 
answer ready for the malicious representations sure to be 
made by his enemies, for he had no difficulty in ascertaining 
that Fonseca and his clique had sent Porras and other mal- 
contents to pour their version of the Admiral's conduct into 
the ears of all who would listen. 

From his chamber in Seville Columbus wrote weekly 
letters to his son, many of which have been preserved. 
They are marked by great earnestness, sincere affection, an 
absolute trust in the divine and royal justice, a profound 
conviction of the equity of his cause, and an outspoken 
detestation for the acts of his enemies. He gives carefully 
detailed instructions, as circumstances develop, as to the 
course to be pursued by his representatives, and dwells 
insistently upon the propriety of his demands. These were, 
( I ) the restoration of his rank and prerogatives as Viceroy 
of the Indies ; (2) the assignment to him of his proportion 
of the revenues from the Indian islands and mainland ; 
(3) an adjustment of the accounts due him from Hispani- 
ola ; (4) the cancellation of all measures which infringed 
his guarantees. His thoughts were not merely selfish, for 
in his first instructions to Diego he especially directs him to 
secure at the earliest possible moment the payment of the 
moneys due the men who had returned with him. His own 
purse had been emptied by the payments made to those 
remaining in the Indies ; but those who accompanied him 
were even more worthy. He could have provided enough 
gold for all such needs, he said, had he been willing to rob 
the people of Veragua ; but this he would not do, because 
it would militate against the success of future Spanish colo- 
nies. A week later he renews his request, couphng in the 
same sentence with his anxiety to get their Majesties' 
response to his own appeal an urgent petition that they 
" should provide for the payment of these poor people, 
who have passed through incredible perils and are the 
bearers of such exalted tidings." The next week it is the 
same : — 



500 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

'• I spent the little money I received in the Indies in bringing 
these people who were with me to their homes : it would be a 
great load upon the conscience to have left them there uncared 
for. . . . Try and obtain their Majesties' reply to my letter, and 
that they pay these people." 

So far as any analysis of a man's thoughts is possible, this 
" mercenary " visionary never contemplated his own distress 
that he did not consider that of his still poorer follovirers, 
and he urged their lesser claims with the same importunity 
as his own greater ones. In dwelling upon his persistency 
in the latter, his critics do not deem it necessary to refer to 
the former. 

Until the news arrived of the Queen's death, which 
occurred on the 28th of November at Medina del Campo, 
Columbus had not abandoned hope of her recovery and the 
certainty of her beneficent influence in his behalf. With 
her death he changed instinctively his plan of action, and 
began to lay more stress upon the material side of his argu- 
ments, as if aware that this would have more effect upon 
Ferdinand than considerations of mere justice. His tribute 
to the Queen, in a minute written for Diego's use, shows 
the deep reverence he felt for her character : " Her life was 
always Catholic and saintly, ready for all that redounded 
to God's holy service, and for this we are bound to believe 
that she is in His holy glory, free from the care of this harsh 
and wearisome world." At the same time he dwells, for 
Ferdinand's benefit, upon the reckless maladministration 
of the Indies, declares that Ovando is disliked by all in his 
government, and shows how it would be possible to increase 
the revenue from that island by ten times. " They use here 
a proverb which says, ' The horse within its owner's sight 
grows fat,' " he significantly remarks. 

". . . It is essential that his Majesty occupy himself with and 
study the preservation of those lands. People say it is on this 
account that he cannot furnish a good government for the whole 
of these Indies, and that they are worthless and do not yield the 
return it is right to expect. In my opinion it would be to his 
advantage if he should relieve himself somewhat of this by 
appointing some one who would suffer through their bad 
manasrement." 



"/ HAVE DONE ALL I COULD." 501 

The recommendations which he makes are sound and 
practical, the natural result of his experience, both fortunate 
and the reverse. There is abundant outside evidence to show 
that his charges, as well as his suggestions, were more than 
justified. That they were not written for selfish ends 
appears from the total absence of any allusion to his own 
pretensions in this paper. Considering that he had given 
thirteen years to the development of the Indies, it is not in- 
conceivable that he might discuss their welfare in the abstract 
without obscuring the question with his own disputes. 

Although Columbus wrote, " I am living on borrowed 
money," soon after he reached Seville, there is not evidence 
to support the assumption that he was in abject poverty. 
He did repeatedly enjoin upon Diego the necessity of econ- 
omy, but it was because of the uncertainty as to when their 
share of the revenues would be received from San Domingo. 

" Observe that it is very needful to watch them [the funds] 
carefully ; because I had a quarrel with that governor, for every- 
body told me that I was entitled to 11,000 or 12,000 ducats, and 
I only received 4000. ... So that although I possess moneys 
out there [in Hispaniola], there is no one who dares to demand 
them of the Governor on account of his haughtiness." 

Among the numerous and wealthy Genoese merchants 
residing in Seville, he was apparently always able to obtain 
the funds required for his immediate needs and for remit- 
tance to his sons and Don Bartholomew. The basis of 
these advances was the obvious justice of his claims to the 
large sums already due him, rather than his indefinite future 
expectations. His expenses were large, with so many per- 
sons engaged in his interests, and his caution in restricting 
his outlays as much as possible was honorable. " I have 
already said how necessary it is to be careful with money," 
he wrote to Diego late in December, " until their Majesties 
give us a permanent settlement." Even in his own em- 
barrassment he found means to help the neediest of his 
followers. 

" The payment of these people who went with me has been 
delayed. I have supplied them here with what I could. They 



502 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

are poor, and must set about earning a livelihood. They have 
decided to go to the Indies, and have been told that everj'thing 
shall be done for them that is possible, as is only right, although 
there are among them some who deserve punishment rather than 
rewards." 

The arrival in January of the regular fleet from San 
Domingo with no remittance for him greatly disquieted 
him, for he had counted upon receiving his tithe of the 
gold collected by the governor. "They brought much 
gold," he says, " but none for the Crown. So great a farce 
was never seen, for I left there 60,000 ducats already 
coined. His Majesty ought not to allow this great enter- 
prise to slip through his hands as he does." As the pros- 
pect of receiving any portion of his dues from Ovando 
became more remote, he became more urgent for economy. 
" Look carefully after the expenditures, for it is necessary," 
is his injunction to Diego, after relating the arrival of the 
fleet. A little good-will on the part of the Indian Board 
at Seville would have removed all difficulties without com- 
mitting the Crown in any way upon the main issues in 
dispute. No one dared say that the Admiral had no share 
in the revenue from the Indies. As a matter of fact he did 
have certain important sums to his credit ; but on the pretext 
of unsettled accounts of past voyages, proper apportion- 
ment of various outlays between himself and the Crown, 
differences of interpretation as to what items were or were 
not to be deducted from the gross revenue before making 
division, and a score of such like quibbles as any keen clerk 
could easily invent, Fonseca succeeded in blocking the 
passage of a single maravedi from the Treasury to Columbus. 
There was, no doubt, great confusion in the accounts. The 
absurdity of charging the Admiral with every biscuit, needle, 
and fathom of rope which went into his several expeditions, 
and expecting him to account for them all at the end of 
a three years' cruise, gave ample opportunity for haggling. 
Who was to be charged with the loss of the four caravels 
on the last voyage, Columbus or the Crown? Who owed 
the families of the dead sailors? What became of all the 
merchandise furnished for barter? It was easy enough for 



"/ HAVE DONE ALL / COULD." 503 

those who held the keys of the coffer to raise questions Hke 
these when pressed for settlement. But notwithstanding 
these pettifogging embarrassments Columbus seems to have 
continued to obtain such funds as he absolutely needed 
from his Italian compatriots. Poor he was, as compared 
with any honest computation of his dues, but he was not 
in the wretched misery so often depicted. His acknowl- 
edged claims were negotiable for part of their face, at least. 
Nor was he deserted and despised during his long stay 
in Seville. In the occasional absence, for many days, of 
letters from his son, he would write chidingly but never 
unkindly, and more rarely would speak querulously or de- 
spondently of his position. The wonder is, that a man who 
had passed through what he had, and was now finishing his 
second year of confinement from the gout, could ever write 
cheerfully. Yet the general tone of his letters is chatty and 
even bright. If we read them without reference to the cir- 
cumstances of their production, we may easily find phrases 
which, taken singly, are lugubrious enough; but read as a 
whole, with due regard to their author's situation, it would 
be hypercritical to characterize them as gloomy. Although 
so many of his immediate family were at Court, he was as 
much at home in Seville as anywhere, and he saw much of 
his friends, if we may judge from his allusions. He busied 
himself with trying to induce the officials of the Indian 
Board to adopt certain measures of such evident advantage 
to the Crown that they were at least carefully considered, 
and in the intervals of his attacks of pain he wrote a great 
deal. In response to some message or communication re- 
ceived from the Pope, he wrote an account of his voyage; of 
which he took pains to make a copy for Diego to show to 
the King and Fonseca " to avoid false reports." Some little 
attention was given to the " Book of the Prophecies," written 
in 1502, but it was soon laid aside. With ever punctilious 
attention to the preservation of the record of his grants and 
privileges intact, he sent to Genoa copies of his latest 
assurances from their Majesties, to be filed with his budget 
of privileges in the Bank of St. George, and did the same 
to the duplicate set in the hands of his friend Fray Gorricio. 



504 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

His close sympathy with the priestly orders secured him 
much attention from them, and he interested himself in the 
selection of fitting men for the missionary sees it was pro- 
posed to create in Hispaniola. Finally, he was at the centre 
of geographical and commercial activity, and surrounded 
by many congenial spirits who thought none the less of the 
"old Admiral" because he was out of favor at Court and 
was living according to his means. We do not for a mo- 
ment assume that the facts we have recited furnish any 
palliation for Ferdinand's neglect of Columbus. They 
merely go to show that the stout-hearted sailor did not fold 
his hands, and spend his days bemoaning his fate as some 
would have us believe. 

There is throughout these letters a pervading tone of 
patient kindness which betokens a steadfast and generous 
spirit. To his son Diego he is always " Thy father who 
loves thee more than himself." "Make much of thy 
brother," he writes again; "he has a good disposition and 
has already given up youthful follies. Ten brothers would 
not be too many for thee : I myself never found better 
friend either at my right hand or at my left than my 
brothers." "Treat thy uncle with deference, as is right, 
and deal intimately with thy brother, as the older brother 
should with the younger. Thou hast no other, and, God 
be praised, he is such as thou hast much need of." He is 
careful to send messages of recognition in each letter to all 
his friends, sometimes with a special message of acknowledg- 
ment for services rendered. Diego Mendez, on returning 
from a visit, "carries his sack full of them." When the 
apothecary Bernal and a companion were about going to the 
Court with the avowed purpose of telling lies about him, 
the harshest comment he has to make is, "They are two 
creatures for whom God has done few miracles; if they go 
it will be rather to do harm than good." Terreros, the 
captain who was killed at Mayma, had made a will in favor 
of a comrade, and afterwards had cancelled it in favor of his 
own relations. The comrade tried to have the earlier one 
recognized, but was disconcerted by the production of the 
later one. The Admiral was appealed to to aid the rightful 



"/ HAVE DONE ALL / COULD." 505 

heirs. He writes to his son, " I will take out an order of 
justice and send it to him, for I believe it will be a labor 
of mercy to punish him." Even of the Porras brothers he 
speaks with moderation, albeit with unmistakable indig- 
nation. After reciting their revolt and the impossibility 
of securing a trial of Francisco, the leader, he reverts to 
the fact that they are going to Court to join the cabal work- 
ing against him. " I should not wonder if God punished 
them," he writes. "They have gone there with their 
shamelessness." One of the last letters we have from his 
hand is a request to his son to try and obtain the royal par- 
don for two condemned criminals for whom his sympathies 
had been aroused. "Arrange that Diego Mendez places 
this petition with the other appeals for pardon which are 
given to his Majesty in Holy Week. If it should be 
granted then, it is well; if not, try and secure it in some 
other way." There was nothing of saintly meekness about 
him, but neither was there any of that petty vindictiveness 
which would have been so natural to smaller natures. 

The most singular incident in the whole course of his 
detention at Seville was unmistakably his utilization of 
Americus Vespucci as an additional witness to the propriety 
of his claims. Vespucci had been summoned to the Court 
for consultation in connection with some maritime project; 
his admirers think by reason of his great skill as a navigator 
and explorer, but the records rather intimate because of his 
experience as a purveyor of supplies. Before leaving 
Seville, where he was living for the time being, he met the 
Admiral. It is likely that the two men met frequently, 
indeed, for their acquaintance was of long standing, and 
the Florentine had much to learn from the Genoese. In 
what respect the former might be of service to the latter, it 
is difficult to see. He might have some knowledge, from 
his connection with the outfitting of the earlier expeditions, 
of the Admiral's financial disputes with the royal comp- 
trollers; or he might have been able to testify to some inci- 
dent of importance, as the result of his voyage with Hojeda. 
Be that as it may, Columbus, on the 5 th of February, 
1505J wrote to his son as follows: — 



5o6 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

"My dearest son: Diego Mendez left here Tuesday, the 3rd 
of this month. After he left I talked with Americus Vespucci, 
the bearer of this letter, who goes to the Court, called thither by 
some affairs of navigation. He has always had the wish to do 
me pleasure, and is a very honest man. Fortune has been ad- 
verse to him, as to so many others ; his labors have not availed 
him as much as he had a right to expect. He is going at my 
[request] and with a great desire to do something which shall 
redound to my benefit, if it should be within his powers. I do 
not know at this distance in what I can employ him which shall 
be to my advantage, because I do not know for what he may be 
wanted there, but he goes determined to do for me everything 
that should be possible. Do you see there in what he can be of 
advantage, and put it in shape, for he will say and do all that is 
needful and will carry it out ; only let it all be done secretly, so 
that he may not be suspected. I have told him all that it is 
possible to say concerning this matter, and informed him of the 
recompense made to me and that which is still making. This 
letter is for the Adelantado as well, so that he may see what is 
desirable and advise him [Vespucci] . His Majesty may believe 
that his ships have been in the best part of the Indies and the 
wealthiest, and if anything remains to be done to prove this I 
will satisfy him of it at the Court, for it is impossible to do it in 
writing." 

The effort to extol Vespucci at the expense of Columbus 
has given employment to many and skilful pens, with what 
must be admitted to be, on the whole, a negative result. 
Without venturing into this endless controversy, we have 
copied the Admiral's letter for the purpose of allowing a 
comparison between the tone of his allusions to Vespucci 
and the single reference extant in which the latter refers to 
the Admiral. When we add that two years before this letter 
was written Vespucci had already claimed, in his own letters 
to Soderini, to have discovered. Brazil, and the suggestion 
had already been advanced that the southern continent, 
discovered by Columbus, should be called America in honor 
of the man who merely followed the dozen others who had 
preceded him since the Admiral showed the way, the mys- 
tery which surrounds this letter deepens. Whatever may 
be the ultimate solution, the letter itself bears witness to the 
unbounded generosity and simplicity of its writer. 



"/ HAVE DONE ALL I COULOr 507 

With the advent of spring Columbus felt able to under- 
take the journey to Segovia, where the King and his Court 
were. Several times during the winter he had attempted to 
start from Seville, but each effort failed by reason of the 
effect of the intense cold upon his frail health. When he 
did set out he had to travel in a mule-litter, for which a 
special license was procured, and the journey was both 
tedious and painful. The Court was reached in May. His 
reception by the King was amiable but not cordial. Con- 
sidering the attitude which Ferdinand had assumed towards 
his partner in the Indian venture, this is not surprising. 
The Admiral gave an account of his discoveries, of the 
resources of Veragua, of the many difificulties encountered 
during the voyage and of its disastrous ending. To all of 
these the King gave interested attention ; but it was not the 
quick, responsive enthusiasm with which he had listened 
to earlier recitals from the same lips. Finally, when the 
Admiral touched upon the vital question, — the restoration 
of his dignities and emoluments, — the King repeated his 
suave and well-worn generalities about doing justice and 
recompensing his servant in proportion to his distinguished 
services. As a fact, Columbus had not advanced his cause 
a jot; but his old spirit of reverential loyalty was aroused, 
and he felt that the King's own sacred words must neces- 
sarily be followed by some fitting act. When enough time 
had elapsed and no result was apparent, he handed Ferdi- 
nand a memorial couched in that tone of singular frankness 
which distinguishes all of his communications to his sover- 
eigns : — 

" Now my undertaking begins to open the door, and shows 
that it is and will be what I always have said. Your Majesty 
is most Christian ; I and all those in Spain and in the whole 
world who have knowledge of my deeds will believe that your 
Majesty, who honored me at the time when you had no experi- 
ence with me except words, now that you see the result will 
renew to me, with increase, the rewards you have given me, as 
you prom'ised me by word and in writing and by your signature. 
If you do this, rest assured that I will serve you the few days 
of life which Our Lord shall give me," 



508 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

The King admitted then, as he did to Diego after the 
Admiral's death, that he owed the Empire of the Indies to 
the petitioner. He confessed that the Admiral was entitled 
to all that had been promised him. But, he objected, there 
were all those questions of conflicting interpretation to be 
decided before he could carry out his honest and right royal 
intentions towards the Admiral: would it not be well to 
submit these to the arbitration of some learned and impartial 
person? To this the Admiral promptly assented and sug- 
gested Fray Diego de Deza, Archbishop of Seville, as an 
arbiter acceptable to himself and one whose devotion to the 
Crown was notorious. The King was not unwilling to leave 
the matters in dispute to the prelate's award; but at the 
first attempt to agree upon the questions to be arbitrated 
an incurable divergence arose. Everything relating to his 
pecuniary interests and shares Columbus was willing to 
leave to be determined, after debate; but all that touched 
his rank and prerogatives was sacred and exempt from 
discussion. Viceroy and Perpetual Governor of the Indies 
he was as surely as Admiral of the Ocean Sea. No one dis- 
puted the latter title, and the former was an integral part of 
one and the same guarantee. " The governorship and con- 
trol in which I was are the foundation of my honor," he 
said on a later occasion, and his whole contention is epito- 
mized in the phrase. Whether his tithe of the Indian 
revenue was chargeable upon the net or gross amount 
thereof; whether a certain part of some, and the whole of 
other expenses were to be paid by him; whether his pecun- 
iary rights extended only over Hispaniola and the other 
islands or over the whole mainland as well,' — all these and 
their like he would admit to argument. Money he needed, 
and badly, for his daily wants; without his share of the 
future revenues of the Indies his grandiose but earnest pro- 
ject for recovering the Holy Sepulchre must be abandoned; 
unless they received at least a generous portion of it, his 
sons could not carry out his charitable designs; all this, 
however, he would make dependent upon the decrsion of a 
referee. But his dignities and their prerogatives were res 
adjiidicata. The last word had been said as to them when 



"/ HAVE DONE ALL L COULD:' 509 

the King and Queen ratified their conditional grant of his 
honors after his ample fulfilment of the task upon which 
they were conditioned. 

Finding the Admiral obdurate on this point, the King 
returned to his old tactics of procrastination. From the 
fragmentary testimony which remains, it is evident that the 
whole dreary wrangle, from the days of Soria's and Bribi- 
esca's quarrel in 1493 down to the question of jurisdiction 
with Ovando in 1504, was gone over by the Admiral's 
opponents as furnishing arguments to rebut his own. Fer- 
dinand was deeply preoccupied with his other interests of 
person and State; having determined to contest the Ad- 
miral's claims he could not give much time to the discus- 
sions which followed, and they were necessarily left to his 
councillors. Twice they were laid before the " commission 
for the discharge of the Queen's conscience," — a board 
sitting to consider reclamations brought against them as 
representing the late Queen, — and both times they were 
remanded without action. To provide- an easy solution, 
the King recurred to the suggestion made Columbus in 1496, 
and offered him a Spanish title and estate adequate to main- 
tain it; but the Admiral declined to consider the proposal. 
He did not wish the rank for its own sake, or the revenue 
for the sake of living at ease. To him the Indies were a 
direct gift from the Almighty, and their revenues for all 
time to come were solemnly pledged for certain defined 
and beneficent purposes. Only in the hands of himself or 
his delegates could these holy trusts be properly adminis- 
tered, and he knew, if no one else did, what proportions 
they would attain in the future. He was far from ignoring 
the worldly aspect of his interests; one of the clearest 
indications of the far-seeing appreciation with which he 
regarded the vast scope of his discoveries, is the tenacity 
with which he contended for the perpetual nature of his 
vested rights. But that this was secondary to his grand 
schemes of religious and political regeneration, is definitely 
shown by the disposition made in his will of the revenues 
to accrue from the wide realms he had thrown open to civili- 
zation and the true faith. His ambition to raise his familv 



5IO THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

to the front rank of European subjects was as keen as it was 
legitimate; but he looked upon them in the remotest gen- 
erations as pledged to follow the injunctions laid down in 
his testament. It was all lamentably unbusiness-like, but it 
was all desperately sincere. 

The time came, at last, when he could no longer main- 
tain so unequal a contest. It had not been waged single- 
handed, for, besides the devoted assistance of his own 
personal circle, he had the active sympathy of powerful 
friends, including the great Ximenez, Archbishop of Toledo. 
But even with all his support, the King's policy of temporiz- 
ing was bound to win where the defendant was a bed-ridden 
invalid, broken with years of privation, hardship, and mental 
stress. Rather than continue in an obviously fruitless 
struggle, Columbus made a final appeal to Ferdinand. Since 
the overwhelming evidence of his probity and loyalty availed 
nothing, and since the ample and indisputable guarantees 
given him in the past were ignored, he would ask for himself 
only to be allowed to retire in peace to " some corner " 
where he could rest secure from the contentions and 
persecutions forced upon him by tireless enemies. The 
quarrel was against him personally; he would end it by 
effacing himself. Then there could be no pretext for oppo- 
sition to the righteous enforcement of his stipulated rights 
in the person of his son and heir, as explicitly provided in 
the royal agreements. 

" Most humbly do I beseech your Majesty," ran his petition, 
" that you command that my son be instated, in my stead, in the 
rank and enjoyment of the authority in which I was, which so 
nearly touches my honor. In all the rest, let your Majesty act 
as to you seems fit ; I shall be grateful for whatever it is. For I 
believe that the anguish caused by this prolonging of my settle- 
ment is chiefly what keeps me thus crippled by disease." 

With this request he submitted a memorial defending 
himself from some of the worn-out charges, and particu- 
larly denying that of undue severity towards the natives of 
Hispaniola. He pointed to the atrocities permitted, if not 
practised, by Bobadilla and Ovando, and challenged a com- 
parison with the condition of the island under his much- 



«/ HAVE DONE ALL I COULD: 



511 



berated administration. " Although I sent many of them 
to Spain and they were sold there," he admits, referring 
to the Indians, " it was with the intent that they should be 
taught in our holy faith, our arts, trades, and habits, and 
afterwards returned to their own land to instruct others 
there." He might have added that the King had been glad 
to pocket the proceeds of this questionable missionary 
experiment, and was still receiving a share of the slaves 
brought to Spain from the now frequent Indian expeditions, 
Don Diego presented a petition at the same time, asking 
for the fulfilment of his father's privileges in his person, 
and offering to be guided in all his acts as Viceroy by such 
counsellors as the King should appoint. 

Nothing came of this final attempt to secure justice 
except a fresh crop of protestations, promises, and delays.-^ 
The King was patching up an alliance with his brother of 
France, and already preparing to wed a successor to the 
dead Isabella as an important step in his complicated di- 
plomacy. His crazy daughter and her husband were about 
to come to Spain from Flanders to occupy the Castilian 
throne, and Ferdinand was bent on keeping Aragon and 
Naples for himself. He had even less leisure than inclina- 
tion to study an entirely new chapter of the controversy 
with his stubborn Admiral. Columbus seems to have real- 
ized as much. The malady which he had so long resisted 
was gaining upon him now by perceptible degrees. It could 
not break his courage, but it did sap his powers of resistance. 
In a letter to his old ally and friend, Archbishop Deza, he 
virtually relinquished the long and heart-breaking struggle. 

" Since it appears that his Majesty does not consider it best 
to comply with what he has promised by word and contract, 

1 A good deal of light is thrown upon Ferdinand's motives by a 
remark he made to Diego Columbus some time after the Admiral's death. 
Diego was urging upon the King his claims as the Admiral's heir : 
" Look you, Admiral," replied Ferdinand, " I may readily have every 
confidence in you, but have none at all in your heirs or successors." 
To which Diego answered, appositely enough : " Sire, is it right that I 
should suffer for the sins of sons and heirs whom I may never have?" 
Las Casas gives the story as told him directly by the young Admiral. 



512 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL., 

together with the Queen (who is in glory), I feel that to battle 
for a contrary decision would be for me, who am but a rude 
laborer, to flog the wind. Therefore it is best, since I have done 
all I could, to leave the result now to God, Our Lord. 1 have 
ever found Him favorable and ready to help my necessity." 

The old sailor had struck his flag; but when we think of 
the magnitude of the hopes and ambitions he was relin- 
quishing there does not seem to have been much that was 
"hysterical" or "maudling" in his capitulation. 

The steady advance of his illness, unchecked now by any 
sustaining hope, warned the Admiral that the end was not 
far off. On the 25th of August, being then in Valladolid, 
whither the Court had gone from Segovia, he drew up with 
his own hand a codicil to the will executed in 1498. In 
this document, after reaffirming minutely the order of 
succession to be observed in the descent of his titles and 
estates, and enjoining his heirs to respect the obligations 
of the earlier will, he readjusts the income to be drawn by 
his sons and brothers from the estate, " because up to the 
present there has been no revenue from the said Indies." 
Although he refers to his contracts with and privileges from 
the Crown, there is not a word of bitterness or censure. 
He does say in speaking of tlie Indies, "It seems as 
though I, by the will of God Our Lord, gave these to them 
[the King and Queen], as though they were something of 
my own, so to speak, since I importuned their Majesties 
concerning them, when they were unknown and the road to 
them was concealed from all who ever spoke of them" ; but 
in saying this he was merely stating an historical fact, to 
explain why their Majestie's made the agreement of Granada 
with him. The remainder of the codicil is without especial 
interest, except the often discussed reference to Doiia 
Beatriz Enriquez, and the preference he expresses, in en- 
dowing a chapel in Hispaniola, for the site of Conception 
in the Vega, because he there called on the Virgin when in 
extremity; an allusion, apparently, to his battle with the 
allied tribes in 1494. With scrupulous exactness he adds 
to the codicil a list of small debts to be repaid sundry 
Genoese and Jews in Portugal, running back to 1482, when 



"/ HAVE DONE ALL I COULDr 513 

he was a poor map-maker in Lisbon. "This is to be done 
in such manner that they shall not know who has ordered 
it done," he charges. In the depth of his disappointment, 
he was reviewing his whole life and trying to square all 
accounts before it was too late. 

The last months of the Admiral's life are an utter blank 
in the records which have survived. The winter of 1505-6 
opened with Ferdinand preparing for his second nuptials, 
and for the arrival of his daughter and her husband to 
share with him the Spanish throne. To meet Juana and 
Philip he left Valladolid sometime after the New Year, and 
journeyed to Laredo, on the Bay of Biscay. Columbus was 
unable to stir from his couch ; but he sent Don Bartholomew 
to represent him at the reception of the new sovereigns and 
to hand to them his own l^ter of welcome. It was written 
apparently in April, when the tide of courtiers was setting 
northward to hail their future rulers; but there is little of 
festivity in its tone of measured despondency. 

" I am certain that your Majesties shall believe," ran the 
Admirars last letter, " that at no past time have I had so great 
a desire for personal health as I have had since I knew that your 
Majesties were going to come hither by sea, that I might go and 
serve you with the experience and knowledge of navigation 
which I may possess. It has otherwise pleased Our Lord ; where- 
fore I most humbly entreat your Majesties that you count me in 
the number of your royal subjects and servants, and rest assured 
that, though this illness assails me now in this pitiless fashion, 
I can still render services beyond any which have yet been seen. 

" These difficult times and other afflictions in which I have 
against all justice been placed, have brought me to great extrem- 
ity ; for this cause I have not been able to go to your Majesties, 
nor has my son. Very humbly I beg that you may accept the 
intention and desire, as of one who hopes to be restored to his 
rank and estate as my patents guarantee." 

What service the writer contemplated rendering his new 
sovereigns cannot even be conjectured. It would be natural 
for him to plan a voyage into the remote South, to determine 
once and for all the extent of the continent which little by 
little was being shown to be so vast. That he had some 
such prospect awaiting his restoration to health is clear, 

7>Z 



514 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

and that he counted upon finding in Isabella's daughter a 
revival of the protection which the mother had vouchsafed 
him. Those who were in a position to know believed that 
in this he would not have been disappointed. The favorable 
reception accorded Don Bartholomew by Queen Juana and 
her husband, and their kind verbal reply to the Admiral's 
letter support the probability. 

Whether Columbus knew of the friendly disposition ex- 
pressed by their Majesties is uncertain. They arrived at 
Corunna at the end of April ; but it may readily have been 
several days later that Don Bartholomew had his audience, 
and the road to Valladolid was neither short nor smooth. 
If the tidings did not reach the Admiral early in May, they 
would have been only an added bitterness, for by the 
middle of the month it had b^ome apparent that neither 
rank nor revenue would avail him anything. On the 19th 
of May he called in Pedro de Hinojedo, a notary of the 
city, and confided to him the codicil drawn in August, 
to be duly certified and recorded.^ Nine of the Admiral's 
friends and retainers witnessed this acknowledgment, among 
them being Bartolom^ de Fiesco, the courageous companion 
of Diego Mendez. llie testator was described in the cer- 
tificate as being "ill of body," but no other intimation is 
given of his real condition. On the next day, May the 
20th, being the festival of Ascension, he was so low that 
the sacrament was administered to him. At least one of 
his sons, Diego, several of his friends, and a number of his 
body-ser\^ants were with him. What scenes passed in the 
closing hours of that eventful life have never been disclosed, 
and we only know that he was conscious when the end came. 
Repeating the words of the Psalmist, " Into Thy hands, O 
Tord, I commend my spirit," the old Admiral entered upon 
his last and longest voyage into the Unknown. 

The limitations of character which stamped Columbus 
as a man among men and not a demi-god are as apparent 
to all who study his life as are his preeminent deeds. 

1 The notary was evidently familiar with the disputes between his 
client and the Crown, for he adds the words " which he said he was," 
after the recital of the Admiral's titles of Viceroy and Governor-General. 



"/ HAVE DONE ALL / COULD." 515 

Since he made no effort to conceal them, it is superfluous for 
us to attempt the task. Few men have taken less pains to 
pose as paragons than did this one, conscious though he 
was that his achievements would command the admiration 
of future generations. The interests of historical truth may 
properly demand that a man's nature should be faithfully 
portrayed ; but they cannot be served either by the exagger- 
ation of his shortcomings or that of his services to human- 
ity. To claim that the world's truly great are flawless, and 
to deny to all who are not a title to the plaudits of succeed- 
ing ages, is to narrow the heroes of humanity to a number 
not encouraging to those who have faith in the elevation of 
their kind. We do not exhaust our critical faculties in 
detecting and magnifying the shortcomings of the contem- 
poraries of Columbus, — of Luther, Copernicus, Michael 
Angelo, Da Vinci, or Raphael, — although no one of them 
was free from the weaknesses of the flesh. In what respect 
shall we be benefited, or his fame be impaired, when we 
have proven to our own satisfaction that the dauntless ex- 
plorer possessed his share of the errors common to the clay 
of which we are all made? In no single instance did he 
pretend otherwise. 

The general accusations which are brought against him, 
— of avarice, cruelty, misgovernment, nepotism, and the 
like, — are as old as the great voyage of 1492. Twice in his 
lifetime and once afterward, these were brought forward, 
prosecuted with venomous perseverance, and dismissed for 
want of foundation. It is only common fairness to hold a 
man absolved from charges thrice preferred and thrice 
refuted by a tribunal of ultimate appeal. When Columbus 
returned from Hispaniola in 1496, the vehement assertions 
of the Boil-Margarite-Aguado cabal were utterly disproved, 
and the King and Queen heaped fresh honors upon him 
in compensation for their momentary distrust. In 1502, 
when he appeared before them in Bobadilla's fetters, pur- 
sued by a tireless persecution, his sovereigns, in their 
instructions to Ovando, and their emphatic condemnation 
of Bobadilla and Roldan, vindicated completely the Admi- 
ral's administration, although they took selfish advantage 
of the iniuries done him. Finally, years after he was 



5l6 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

dead, when the Council of the Indies at the petition of his 
son took cognizance of those claims which the Admiral had 
so persistently urged upon Ferdinand's consideration, its 
learned and independent members were compelled to admit 
that his reclamations were well grounded and his rights 
explicit. Those who care to read the evidence, pro and 
contra, submitted to the Council, may find there all the 
criticisms and censures with which in later years we have 
become familiar as the fruit of some modern methods of 
historical analysis. Several imlettered mariners from the 
ports of Andalusia, — and especially those who testified from 
hearsay, — anticipated the labors of certain later historians 
in trying to prove that the "old Admiral" did not amount 
to nearly as much as some deluded people supposed. 

Yet it is difficult to point to a single important discoverv 
within the quarter of a century following the death of 
Columbus in which his direct, — not remote, — influence is 
not apparent. We have already traced the intimate con- 
nection between his explorations and the finding of Brazil, 
the coasts of the Spanish Main and Yucatan, and shown 
that Cortez was guided to Mexico by a pupil of the great 
discoverer. On turning over the contemporary records of 
other voyages we shall find that Cuba was first circumnavi- 
gated by Sebastian del Campo, another disciple ; the Gulf 
of Mexico coasted and the Mississippi found by Garay, a 
trusted subordinate; the Isthmus of Panama crossed, and 
the Pacific descried by an expedition in which other fol- 
lowers of the Admiral figured ; and, finally, the voyage of 
Magellan and the conquests of Pizarro shared by men who 
had served their apprenticeship under the great explorer. 
In all of these and many lesser exploits, there will be found 
some link binding them to the theories and teachings of 
him who, to use Las Casas's simile, found the thread lead- 
ing up to the ball of twine. When we bear in mind the innu- 
merable reports, letters, arguments, and maps which Colum- 
bus is known to have prepared but which have never been 
found, the extraordinary activity of his mind and the accu- 
racy of his deductions, it is not difficult to believe that 
those who had access to the full record of his researches 
possessed therein a mine of geographical inspiration. 



"/ HAVE DONE ALL / COULD." 517 

Columbus is entitled to no special pleading. He is to be 
judged by his record, precisely as are Ferdinand, Fonseca, 
Bobadilla, and Ovando. In his case the record is singularly 
full and clear, actions and motives alike being set forth with 
transparent simplicity. Whether they were laudable, or the 
reverse, each investigator may decide for himself. The 
controversy as to his character and purposes is not a modern 
one, as appears from the reflections of Oviedo and Gomara. 
To his own contemporaries it did not occur either to ascribe 
to him immunity from mortal error, or to look upon him as 
a moral pariah. None of his critics has been more severe 
upon him than was his associate Las Casas, in respect of 
his attitude toward those natives who did not meekly accept 
the Spanish rule. But although the devoted Protector of the 
Indians often scores the Admiral unsparingly, he did not feel 
constrained to brand him as deficient in every quality that 
goes to make a man. Here is his deliberate judgment of the 
Admiral's character, written after many years of intimate 
association with the very men who had contributed most 
of the material upon which later criticism is founded : — 

" Don Christopher Columbus . . . was affable and cheerful, 
well-spoken, and eloquent, grave in moderation, amiable with 
strangers, courteous and mirthful with those of his household ; 
preserving a modest dignity, but given to discreet conversation, 
so that he readily won the aflfection of those who knew him. 
He possessed the manner and appearance of one entitled to 
veneration, of high rank and authority and worthy of all respect. 
He was sober and temperate in eating, drinking, and dress. 
When speaking lightly with any one in familiar discourse, or 
when reproving any one in anger, he was used to say ' I give 
you to God, does not it seem so to you?' or, ' why did not you 
do so and so? ' He was learned in astronomy, deeply skilled in 
navigation, knew Latin and composed verses. 

"In the observances of the Christian religion he was an 
earnest Churchman, of notable devotion. Almost everything he 
said or did he always prefaced with '■ In the name of the Holy 
Trinity I will do this.' In every letter or paper he wrote he 
placed at the head ' Jesus. His Cross and Mary be with us on 
the way.' His oath occasionally was, ' I swear by St. Ferdi- 
nand.' When wishing to affirm anything with solemnity in his 
letters, especially those to his sovereigns, he said, 'T take my 
oath that this is the truth.' He observ^ed the fasts of the Church 



5l8 THE LAST VOYAGES OF THE ADMIRAL. 

most scmpulously, confessed and communed often ; recited all 
the canonical prayers ; was much opposed to blasphemy and 
profane swearing, and deeply devoted to Our Lady and the 
Holy St. Francis. . . . He was very zealous for the honor of 
God and very anxious for the conversion of the Indians and that 
the faith of Jesus Christ should be extended. He was singularly 
devoted to the hope that God should make him worthy to do 
something towards the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. 

" He was a man of lofty soul, valiant, of high aims, especially 
inclined, as may be gathered from his life, deeds, writings, and 
conversation, to undertake preeminent and singular exploits ; 
patient and long-suffering ; a forgiver of injuries ; one who 
desired nothing more, — according to what is related of him — 
than that those who wronged him should recognize their errors 
and become reconciled witli him. He was most constant and 
forbearing in the trials and adversities wliich constantly beset 
him and which were incredible and endless ; maintaining always 
a perfect trust in Divine Providence. And of a surety, both from 
what I heard from himself and from my own father and tlie other 
persons who accompanied him when he returned to colonize the 
Island of Hispaniola in 1493, — he cherished and retained always 
an affectionate loyalty and devotion for his sovereigns." 

One who gains in the battle of life such victories as were 
given to Columbus to win, and who leaves behind him such 
an impression even upon those with whom he disputed upon 
vital issues of right and wrong, does not need the intem- 
perate applause of "canonizers," and cannot suffer by the 
censure of professed iconoclasts. Either he was what Las 
Casas portrays, or he was what his modern accusers would 
have us believe; a maundering, hypocritical sentimentalist, 
besotted with ambition and sordid avarice, who, by the 
grace of Fortune and the Trade Winds, stumbled upon our 
western world while leading a filibustering expedition to 
the eastern shores of Asia. If this is all there was in 
his career to command our consideration, the sooner we 
erect statues to Juan Rodrigues Bermejo and Alonzo Perez, 
who with corporeal vision first espied the sands of Guana- 
hani and the peaks of Trinidad, the more quickly shall we 
do merited honor to historical truth. 



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